Just under a week ago AdSense rolled out their new Sliding/Scrolling feature on Text Ads. The response from ProBlogger readers was mixed to say the least and included:
“They’re interesting. I like that the arrows are pretty small, yet visible to those who are paying attention to the ads.” Stephanie
“What a waste - do they really think that people looking at Adsense will take the time find a couple of tiny arrows to look at more ads?” - Blogthority
“I’m not a big fan of bells and whistles, so it annoys me a little bit to see more moving parts on a website. On the other hand, if it offers more-relevant ads and gets more clicking for the bloggers, then I’m all for it!” - Jeff
“This seems counterintuitive. People don’t like ads anyway, why would they actively scroll to see more ads?” - Lulu
“I think it will help people get more targeted ads” - Alex
“I am definitely wanting the option to turn it off.”- Prince John
OK - so there are a lot of opinions - but one of the questions that I’m left with today is - have the addition of the ability to see more ads in AdSense units led to any changes in your actual earnings?
Does the ability for people to see more ads increase the chance of them clicking more and you being paid more? Does it lead to a higher eCPM (amount earned per 1000 page views)?
At this stage it’s too early to be conclusive but in spending some time today checking over my own stats I’m not sure there’s much of a difference. In fact if anything some of my AdSense channels have had a decrease in CTR over the past week.
I’m hesitant to draw too many conclusions but here is a graph (without any figures) of the CTR and eCPM of one blog with AdSense on it at the moment. The 3 April was the day that the scrolling ads went live on most people’s ads.
As I say - it’s too early for conclusions - particularly with just sampling one blog. There’s many explanations for differences in CTR and eCPM however I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed any changes in your AdSense performance over the last week?
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