Multiple Adsense Units

In a recent blog post, Joel Comm asks Are Your Ads In Order?

When using multiple adsense units, it pays to track each unit on the web page separately. You can do this by setting up Channels in your Adsense account. The reason is because the highest paying ads are shown in the first unit that shows on your page (or more accurately, the first unit that is shown within the page's code).

If you are running three units per page, and the adsense unit in your footer gets the most click-through's... then you may be losing money.

To quote Joel ("adsense expert"):

If, for example, you have a leaderboard at the top of your page but most clicks are made on a square ad unit embedded in an article, you might want to try removing the leaderboard and comparing your results. You might find that the extra cost-per-click on your most popular units make up for the lost clicks on the leaderboard. (source)

What you want to do is track each ad unit's performance, and then test variations on your site. Regardless of what you read in the forums or on other websites, how YOUR site performs is the true test. There are many variables involved, including layout & design, target market, niche, etc.

To give you an example, there are generally two Adsense units on any given page here at ClickNewz. One at the top of the content, and one just below the content (above the Comment section). The Adsense unit at the bottom (within the content area) performs slightly better - or gets a higher click through rate - than the unit at the very top of the page.

Since the higher paying ads are shown at the top of the page, it would make sense to see how it affects my overall revenue when I remove that first set of ads. Obviously the higher-paying ads would then show in the Adsense unit that gets more click-through's...

Best,