Following my post Ads at the top does it all!, here’s now my action in order to increase my revenue: I’ll remove the 2 ads I have in the middle of the page so there’s only a top ads on each page. Generally, if I follow Google’s advice (less ads = more relevant ads), I should be getting better ads which would generate better incomes.
With over 88 days of accumulated statistics using Adsense with almost the same template from beginning to end, I’ve got as a result an higher CTR and eCPM on the top ads banner. Those results lead me to think that ads which are in the center of the page SHOULD be poping out instead of being blended with the rest as users will not bother with following links. They are already reading an article, there’s no reason to follow the link until they have finished reading the article (or if the ads says to, but it’s forbidden in the Adwords TOS).
So give some separation to those banners (generally the 468×60 form) and maybe try various background and style. You might hit the jackpot soon or later.
That being said, I would also assume that the top ads does better because there’s nothing else around it (except the menu and the beginning of an article). I should add that when the page is fully loaded, the thing you see just above the center of the page is that top ads. Good placement isn’t it?
I’ll now be removing those ads like I mentionned and I’ll lead a 3 month test to verify if this modification will improve or not my incomes. If it doesn’t well, you know what’s next: some more testing.
You should test both these option:
1) Top ads only, try applying different color schemes, with border/without border, with image above, etc.
2) Top ads AND ads “blended” in the page, testing the “blended ad” with different color schemes, with border/without border, etc.
You can also do step one then step two. If after many trials you get a lower earning from having both ads showing compared to only showing the top ads, well, just use the top ads.