Where Should Your Ads Be Placed on Your Website?

A variety of factors influence revenue generation from websites, and ad placement is one of them.

Publishers have numerous options when it comes to creating ad placements. This frequently confuses them and raises questions such as which ad placement is the best and which ad placements pay the most.

There is no such thing as guaranteed ad placement to boost ad revenue. Personalization is key to finding the best ad placement, and publishers should follow best practises to understand industry trends.

Because each website is unique, monetization techniques cannot be universal.

But, before we get there, let's talk about what ad placement is and why it's important.

What exactly is ad placement and why is it important?

Ad placement is an ad unit or group of ad units that specify areas on the publisher's website where advertisers may place their ads.

Popular placements include 728X90 above main content and 300X250 in-feed. Ad placement includes the size, type, and location of advertisements; this information is shared with buyers during the inventory exchange.

Google Adsense allows publishers to choose between defining their own placement criteria and relying on automatically generated placements.

The placement of an ad determines its viewability, and ad viewability (discussed further below) is an important metric for publishers to consider. Advertisers prefer inventory with high viewability, and if your website ad sizes do not provide this, you may lose revenue.

Ad sizes and formats have an impact on how users interact with ads, which is why they should be optimized on a regular basis.

For example, if a publisher decides to include a leaderboard-size ad in their inventory, they should think about placing the ad above the content. This is because leaderboard ad sizes perform best when they are placed in this manner, according to Google.

Ad placement requires the use of specific tools.

Google Analytics or SEO software: To keep an eye on the traffic and the audience. In addition, to analyze the source of traffic, the most commonly used devices, geographical distribution, and other factors.

Heatmap: To locate the most interesting parts of the website above and below the fold.

Dashboard for Ad Manager: To determine the exact earnings and performance of each ad size and type.

Analysis of Traffic

Understanding the audience is the first step in optimizing ad revenue. Begin with figures like monthly users and page views.

Use Google Analytics to determine which country is providing the most traffic. This should assist in selecting the most popular ad placement among advertisers in that region and/or avoiding ad placements that are not supported in that region.

Next, identify the pages with the highest traffic and lowest bounce rate; these are the moneymakers, and publishers should sell them through guaranteed deals for better monetization.

Viewability of advertisements

Just because you have ads on your website does not mean that users are seeing them.

Advertisers now consider ad viewability to be an important metric. According to Digiday, 54% of ads are not viewable. This irritates advertisers because half of their money is wasted.

All of this puts additional pressure on publishers to improve their inventory in order to display viewable ad units. Begin by understanding the IAB and MRC ad viewability standards.

Viewability standards may include a minimum of 50% of the ad being visible for at least one second for display ads or two seconds for video ads.

Ad viewability should be one of the primary considerations when creating ad placements. Find placements that receive adequate viewing time from users.

Ad Units That Have Already Been Placed Perform Well

Create a report detailing your existing placements' performance in terms of viewable impressions, click-through rate, and overall revenue. Keep the top performers and reconsider the underperformers. Furthermore, these figures should serve as a baseline against which subsequent test results can be compared.

How to Find the Best Ad Positioning

Begin with the Revenue Model: Your revenue model influences your placement strategies. For example, if you work with CPM, you should focus on increasing the number and quality of impressions. Similarly, if you use a CPC model, your strategies should focus on increasing creative click-through rates. If you deal in both, determine which model brings in the most money and prioritize it. The next steps you take to find the best ad placement are influenced by your revenue model.

Pay Attention to What Google Says: But not blindly. Google's quality and quantity are the reasons why it is still the market leader in ad tech. Because it has the largest pool of sellers and buyers, Google's data and insights should not be overlooked.

In the same vein, Google has identified the most common ad sizes and layouts. Here are some of the most common display ad sizes:

• 300 x 250 - in feed between on desktop webpage content
• 728 x 90 - Leaderboard with/under logo 728 x 90
• 300 x 600 - sticky sidebar on the desktop webpage

Check out Google's ad viewability standard as well. This includes IAB data and MRC best practices mixed with Google's own data from serving millions of impressions per minute.

Try to find the perfect balance of ATF and BTF: Overcrowding the above-the-fold (ATF) field for better impressions is not advised. Neither should you place all of your ads below the fold, where they will go unnoticed by users. When in doubt, go with testing. Keep in mind that most users begin scrolling as soon as the page loads. This means that such advertisements should appear on users' screens as soon as possible. Otherwise, the impression is lost. As a result, ensure that your ATF ads load quickly. Similarly, for BTF, lazy loading can be used to improve page load speed. These minor details may not appear to be important, but they help publishers strategize for better user experience, buyer satisfaction, and ad revenue.

Video Marketing: It appears that ad tech is not about to abandon video advertising anytime soon. According to numerous statistics and reports, video advertising increases user engagement. With advancements in technology, it is becoming easier to create video ads, so advertisers and marketers are investing in it on a daily basis. Consider video advertising for your inventory while testing the layout. Outstream video ads, for example, can be run using VAST and VPAID services. If you create video content, you should definitely start with video ads.

Testing, Testing, and Testing Some More: As previously stated, no ad placement will guarantee an increase in ad revenue. Constant testing is required to identify ad placements that should work for your website. This adds to your ad operations team's workload, making testing and monitoring a continuous process. A/B testing is available in Google Ad Manager. Similarly, third-party services can assist you in testing placements for various websites. For more complex experiments, compare display, native, and video ads to see which one adds the most value to your inventory. To give you a sense of scale.

• Display Ads: Most websites with average user engagement should work.
• Native Ads: By displaying ad layouts similar to webpage content, you can provide a non-intrusive ad experience.
• Video Ads: Provide maximum engagement but can be intrusive if not properly placed (like autoplay with sound on).

Conclusion

Make sure to follow the policies of your ad network, exchange, and SSPs when testing ad placements. While conducting the tests, keep ad standards for viewability and user experience in mind.

At Hocalwire CMS, we have included some of the AdSense best practices by default, giving you much more increased Advertisement interaction with users and readers. Book a demo now to give us a shot and see how we can help you increase your AdSense conversions. If you're searching for one, schedule a Demo of Hocalwire CMS by booking a time.