Adsense on Forums - placement

[cheaputils]

I've been messing about with Adsense on my Forum for quite a while and looking for the best position. I've now started to display the ads 'in-thread', after the signature. This puts the ads on the first 3 messages (max) in a thread and I have blended the colours to look like part of the board.

Take a look on The North East Forum and see what you think.

Dave

[Lynn Terry]

You will have to test each placement, and each ad format, to see which performs best on your forum.

I did take a look and it looks fine - except that the middle ad doesnt blend in well on the 2nd post (which has a white background).

[cheaputils]

Hi Lynn, thanks for taking a look. I have tried other positions before, and have a note of how they have performed, but this is the only position I haven't tried them in yet.

The middle ad is always going to be a problem when the theme uses alternating background colours in threads, i don't know a way of interactively changing the background for that post, and it may contravene Adsense TOS anyway. The only way would be not to alternate post background colours in a thread, and I don't really like that idea.

However, if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to pass it on, for both my benefit and for others.

Dave

[Lynn Terry]

I would try running the "banner after first ad" post next in your run of tests to see which performs better. I have it set up here at this forum, which you can see above (currently displaying a 728 static banner).

While you arent getting three ads per page, you may find that it actually converts better for you... or not. Only testing can tell.

[cheaputils]

[cheaputils]

Just a liitle update on this. The forum now typically pulls in $30-40, so it's worth it. Before the ads were 'in thread' it was generating c. $20 for a similar amount of traffic.

[cheaputils]