Ad placement is basically where ads show up on a page: the physical location of the ad and the placement of the ad relative to the content on the page. This can affect your ability to generate more value. Footer banners, for example, are typically much less desirable in comparison to the following areas that have better visibility and are likely to have greater user interactions:

1. Top left: studies show that when a user first arrives on the page, this is the first place they look
2. Next to the scroll bar: typically produces a higher click-through rate than an ad placed elsewhere on the page
3. Third of the way down the page: this has to do with how the user sits at their computer and where their eyes are focused. It’s often used to divide articles and is a more esthetically pleasing way to lay out a website.

Next up is placing ads within the content of your website. Ads placed near relative content tend to perform better because users are focused on the content in that area of the page. You can compare this to ‘upselling’. Your site’s content provided value to the user, but presenting an ad for a related product or service provides an added value, and improves the users’ overall experience.

Finally, limit the number of ads per site and avoid clumping them all above the fold. Too many ads dilute your property’s value to advertisers and users. It is possible to have an ‘ad zone’ on the right side of the page but proceed with caution: too many ads and users could dismiss the ‘ad zone’ as annoying, rather than targeted advertisements, resulting in lower conversion rates. It’s better to stick to 3-4 well placed ads. Remember, less really is more, if the ads and ad placements are well thought out.

If you’re going to invest the time and energy to put ads on your site, you should take your users into consideration when constructing the site and placement of ads. Relative ads placed strategically will improve users’ experience. And if you do, you should see an increased rate of interaction and conversions.

In the current economic climate, the days of burning through end-of-quarter budgets from lofty advertisers are unrealistic. Advertisers are increasingly looking to achieve their CPA performance goals while spending less on pure branding campaigns.

Publishers need to adjust.

To maximize your potential and deliver high CPMs, you need to be aware of your click-through rates and improve the performance conversion rates of your users. Matching campaigns with your user demographics will help this. One simple example: gaming campaigns work well on gaming traffic. Ideally, advertising should be an appealing part of your overall site content.

Too many ads seen in one day by your audience also hurts eCPMs. Frequency cap your traffic to generate higher CPMs. The first view is always the best quality, so displaying the ads with a “freq cap” of 1/24 can be a standard request from advertisers. Keep in mind that certain ad sizes and placements always perform the best: 300×250 medium rectangles and 728×90 leader boards are often the best performing sizes. Picking obscure sizes can result in not having the creatives to run in the placement, as there is a lack of advertisers and, thus low CPMs.

Placement is critical to performance too. Having a placement above the fold will generate better results than one at the bottom of the page which users may never see. Ever wondered why other sites have a 728×90 leader board at the top of the page on a site? Generally, it makes more money.

Most methods to increase eCPMs and revenue are common sense, advertising needs to be seen as a partner to your site that needs to fit in and work together with your audience. The moment you ‘tack’ it on it will degrade your performance.

via Kitara Media