Since activating them I’ve had around 1 email a day from readers telling me that they are seeing ‘strange’ ads. The feedback is that some readers are seeing ads for scammy ‘make money online’ products (relevant but not really what I’d want to associate my brand with) or irrelevant ads.

Last night a reader (Pawel from SEOblogr) emailed to tell me that he was seeing ads for a Gay Chubby Dating service. He sent me this screenshot (click to enlarge).

Now I’m sure ProBlogger has its fair share of Gay Chubby reader who are looking for dates – but it’s not the most relevant ad in the world – certainly not ‘contextual’ as the post it appeared under was about the names that people leave comments under on blogs.

I’m wondering if this ‘irrelevant’ AdSense for RSS feeds is impacting others? I do know that irrelevant ads impact normal AdSense ad units from time to time but it seems I’ve had a lot more complaints about them in my feed than any other ad unit.

PS: I took a few minutes to scan through other b5media blogs to see how relevant the AdSense ads are on them. In most cases they are pretty good. The only other explanation I can think of is that perhaps because the ads are geotargetted that in some parts of the world there are less ads in the system and that relevancy suffers in these places.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

AdSense for RSS Feeds – How Contextual Are the Ads?

When they first started appearing I noticed most bloggers had the ads positioned at the bottom of their blog posts – but in the last week more and more seem to have shifted the ads to the top of their posts.

Obviously positioning them this way makes them more visible to RSS subscribers and is likely to lead to a higher click through rate – but what cost does it come at?

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples:

For starters – here’s how the ads look underneath content (taken from TechCrunch – click to enlarge):

The ads slot in quite nicely – particularly those in the 468×60 format.

Lets look at some ads above content (taken from Chris Brogan – click to enlarge).

This first one is of a 468×60 ad.

In the 468×60 format I think the ad actually doesn’t look too bad. It does interrupt the flow of the post a little – but because it is narrow it isn’t too much for the eye to slip over it to the main content.

However look what happens when AdSense servers a different size ad:

While the 468×60 ads interrupt the flow a little – larger rectangle ads can be quite intrusive and distracting from the content of the post.

The problem that publishers face is that they have no way of blocking larger ads unless they opt for ‘text ads only’ in the setting up of their ads. If you select ‘image ads only’ or ‘text and image ads’ you run the risk of getting served the larger ads if there is an ad that AdSense deems relevant and potentially profitable for your post.

As you’ll see below – at present in the setup of RSS ads the ‘size’ section says ‘feed units are automatically sized’.

The problem with just going with ‘text ads’ alone is that they are not as profitable as image ads (as premium advertisers usually go with images).

What I’d like to See AdSense Do

A number of suggestions come to mind for how AdSense could improve AdSense for Feeds:

1. Allow publishers to choose ad sizes – this way they could select 468×60 ads at the top of their posts and still serve image ads in that format.

2. Rotating positioning – I’d love to see AdSense allow publishers to rotate the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ option so that on some posts they’d be higher and some lower. This might help combat ad blindness.

3. In post ads – this is a bit of a wishlist but I have heard a few publishers mention that they wish they could insert ads inside their content – say after the 2nd or 4th or 5th paragraph. This would put them down the post but close to content. It wouldn’t be for everyone but I suspect it could convert well.

4. Ads that Wrap content around them – one possible solution might be ads that align content around them. This could be complicated when images are used at the top of posts – but might help feeds to flow a little more.

What Should a Publisher Do?

I see three main options for publishers wanting to include RSS ads in their feeds:

1. put them below posts – this is what I do on DPS at the moment. While I’d like to have them higher I’m not willing to disrupt the flow as much as what the larger ones do in the above illustration.

2. put them above posts but only with text ads – this will increase visibility and CTR of the ads but probably earn you less per click/impression

3. put them above posts with text and image ads – for those publishers willing to ignore the disruption.

Different publishers will come to different decisions on this and I’m not going to judge anyone for the one they come to – however I think if AdSense could add a few more options for publishers they could help us all meet our goals of optimal profits AND optimal readability for our readers.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Where to Position Ads in Your RSS Feed

What I find interesting is that 18 months ago I ran this same poll. The results were that 75% of readers didn’t run RSS ads on their blog. While there’s still a significant number of bloggers not doing RSS ads there’s been a definite shift.

PS: Don’t forget to vote in our new poll.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

66% of Bloggers Don’t Run RSS Ads On Their Blog [POLL RESULTS]

AdSense for feeds is similar to most AdSense ads in that the ads served in your feeds are a mixture of CPM and CPC ads.

Publishers setting up AdSense for feeds have a number of options when it comes to ad formats (text alone, text and image and just image ads), design (colors) and how often ads are displayed (you can have ads appear every 1,2,3 posts or only on posts over a certain amount of words).

If you’re a Feedburner Ad Network publisher you now need to set up AdSense for feeds to keep monetizing your feeds.

For more information see the AdSense Blog announcement.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

AdSense for Feeds Goes Live

Do you Run RSS Ads on Your Main Blog?

RSS advertising has been around for a couple of years now and I see quite a few RSS ads appearing in my own RSS reading – but I’d be interested to know just how far it extends into the blogosphere – so lets see shall we?

Looking forward to seeing the results of this poll.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Do you Run RSS Ads on Your Main Blog? [POLL]