Online Arbitrage Case Study: How Trendelier Increased AdSense Earnings by 217%
There are so many ways to increase your Google AdSense earnings. Our very ambitious goal is to cover all possible optimizations under the bright light of the Google logo. But, with all the different ways to increase your AdSense income, we still love to talk about ourselves.
And our favorite topic to talk about is how AdSense publishers can use our test platform to increase earnings.
The following is a short version of a case study on how we were able to leverage our test platform to increase Trendelier.com, one of the largest entertainment news websites, AdSense RPM by 217% in 5 weeks.
Who is Trendeleier.com?
Trendeleier.com is a classic online arbitration website.
As a website that earns 100% of its revenue from advertising, Trendelier is highly dependent on the success of its monetization channels. One of the main sources of income for Trendelier is Google AdSense.
For a while, the website’s AdSense earnings had hit a wall. Your teams spend a significant amount of time finding, creating, and curating your content with truly amazing results: millions of people visit your website every month, your content is constantly going viral, and your engagement metrics are… impressive, more impressive. .
With so much going on on the content front, they have very little time and manpower to fully optimize their ad networks and maximize their ad revenue.
Trendelier account manager quickly set up different ad layouts to maximize your Google AdSense CTR:
What experiments did Trendelier perform?
mobile experiment
The first version they created targeted a popular article that receives a significant amount of mobile traffic. The variation consisted of only 2 ad units.
Why is it only asking for 2 ad units? Why not use the max?
Because a pageview is a pageview. If you didn’t see a click on the first two ads displayed on the page, it’s unlikely that you’ll see a click on the third ad displayed… Go ahead and try it.
Assumption: Two ads can generate more revenue than three ads.
1:2 variation ad unit design
This variation showed 2 Google AdSense ads. The former was placed below the title, while the latter was placed just above the navigation buttons.
This variation saw an overall click-through rate of 2.67%
Variation 2: 3 ad unit layout
If the first variation showed two ads, then you guessed it, the second one showed three ads.
The first ad was located above the headline with a second ad just below. The final ad was placed just above the navigation buttons as in the first variation.
This variation saw an overall click-through rate of 2.08%
Results
Overall, Variation 1 increased CTR by 28% over Variation 2. This increase in CTR resulted in an increase in RPM of 44%. The control received almost no traffic during the experiments.
desktop experiment
Once again, this experiment is designed to test a certain hypothesis. One that has become common among most online publishers.
Hypothesis: In-content ads work better
The whole premise of banner blindness and native advertising is really based on the notion that readers are blind to ads placed outside of the vertical content and have trained their eyes to see only the vertical content on the page.
Variation 1 – Sidebar Ad Unit
The first variation consists of two in-content ad units with one sidebar ad unit.
The sidebar ad unit was placed outside of this vertical and as part of a sidebar that displays links and ads to other pieces of content. For the purposes of this screenshot, we’ve disabled all other advertisers, so you see “ad” instead of the other ads shown, but trust us, they’re there.
This variation saw an overall CTR of 2.56%
Variation 2 – In-Feed Heavy
So if the first variation showed 2 in-content ads and one sidebar ad, then this one, you guessed it, shows all three AdSense ads within the content section, or feed, of the page.
Native advertising owes much of its success to its content features. 53% of consumers look at native ads more often than display ads. One of the reasons is undoubtedly because of its location within the content feed.
However, in reality, this variation provided an overall CTR of 1.75%.
Results
There is a lot of research out there that will tell you that your visitors see your native ads more than banner ads. It may all be fine and true. However, what you should be asking yourself is if they click on them more.
Judging by previous Trendelier experiments, the answer is no. The “native style” in-feed ad layout did not receive a higher click-through rate than the classic layout.
The classic layout actually outperformed the “native layout” by an astounding 46%, resulting in a whopping 68% increase in RPM.
But what does all this mean?
Let’s face it, most fashion news websites monetize their traffic with CPC networks, and when your website has a strong focus on ROI, click-through rates that are even a fraction higher can have a significant impact. in your results.
That is why it is important that you take the following two suggestions:
- A pageview is a pageview. With our system, you can deliver the ad with the highest CTR first on the page, and if that ad doesn’t convert a click, chances are the other ads on the page won’t either. This unique ability allows our users to display fewer ads on the page and get a higher overall CTR and RPM for the page.
- In-feed means more eyeballs, not more clicks. Ads placed within the content feed are more likely to be noticed, but not necessarily more clicks.
Do you think your website is different? Start using the tips above and see what results you get, then come back here and show us how wrong (deleted) we were.