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Improving AdSense CTR with Video

Posted By Darren Rowse 12th of November 2006 Adsense 0 Comments

Eches Blog has an interesting post on Improving CTR by using Video next to Adsense by pointing to a site that uses AdSense Ads like this next to YouTube video clips:

Picture 4-8

It’s a strategy that makes sense and I’ve long wondered why YouTube themselves (now owned by Google) have such poorly positioned AdSense ads (usually running up in the banner position).

I’m not convinced that ads next to video will be highly lucrative but on a page where there is video it does make sense to have it in the vicinity of the point of focus of the page (the video).

I guess the question to ask is whether AdSense allows such a placement?

The rule for images seems to be that there needs to be some visual barrier between ads and images to make it obvious that they are not one and the same thing – I suspect it’d be similar for Video – although a video does have different visual controls around it that do make it pretty obvious that they’re not the same thing.

I suspect that as video becomes more and more popular on blogs and websites that we’ll see more and more innovations with ads around videos.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Hi Darren,

    I’ve already checked with Google Adsense team on this and it’s okay with them.

    Hope this helps. :)

  2. This is a good idea overall. I think the worries of confusing the user are overblown; Looking at the site in question, it is apparent that the text ads are not part of the acutal video; they are just very pervasive.

  3. I don’t think Google permits this tactic wholeheartedly. This has evolved from placing images adjacent to adsense ads.

  4. This is quite nifty. This is just but a taste of the future to come, all sorts of attention grabbers right next to ads.

  5. I think YouTube might implement something like this soon. But Youtube’s in a lot of turmoil. The YouTubers are complaining about this and that.

  6. I have this approach on my fight video blog. Not sure it really works because I think the video takes all the attention and the ad gets left behind.

  7. This approach is still not perfect yet. You can try to add a 728X15 link unit ads just under the video and the text ads.

    I used it before and most people will only click at the link unit ads.

  8. i think the whole thing about placing the video on your page is not only about getting some clicks, but rather to enchance your visitors’ surfing experience while visiting your site

    There are way too much information floating around the internet and what better to feed their needs than having a multimedia rich content like relevant videos themselves.

    It’s all about the VEO or visitor enhance optimization. The ads themselves just complements their searching goal, shouldn’t be done solely to induce irrelevant clicks.

    Think about it, if the visitors stay long enough on your pages (because of watching the videos), don’t you think that the search engines might consider your site to be relevant enough to boost your relevancy ranking?

    Otherwise, if you tend to stuff keywords and keywords into your content which will make your content rather dull and boring, many visitors would be turned away such as myself. Then I would also think that the SE’s may consider your site to be irrelevant to the searches done.

    just my 2cents

  9. I thought, publishers are not allowed to use youtube content with adsense?
    A lot of YouTube content belongs to different people or are even have copy right restristions

  10. siong1987:

    thanx! changed it now! problem is google only allows one link ad (468×15) per page.

  11. James:

    Checked the adsense TOS, you are right! Thanks! Took the ads off my site.

  12. Yes I was thinking more of the copyright issues rather than the placement strategy – I suppose you could use YouTube to create your own original / public domain video footage to use, then it comes down to placement of images and attracting attention again, as with any other type of content, rather than copyright issues.

  13. I wanna try this out.

    I will make a video of myself. I will record my ugly big face and talk a lot of interesting stuff.

    I will use my body language to seduce people to click on the adsense ads beside the video.

    My head will keep turning to the right and looking at something while I speak. My readers will think “what is this stupid guy looking at..” their eyes will shift to the Adsense Ads where my head is facing.

    Against TOS? I never talk anything about google adsense. I never point to it. I merely just turn my head in the video. This will be interesting.

  14. Hmm… this looks like a good approach. As I have quite a number of videos on Youtube which are posted on my blog too, I think I can try something like that. Hope it works!

    Thanks.

  15. James says: 11/14/2006 at 7:23 pm

    I’ve been using youtube with adsense for quite awhile now – google has seen my blogs and gave it an ok. I use adsense above and below the videos – but… I like this placement better. I wonder how they got the video size like that?

  16. I wish Google would notify users when they come out with new features for Adsense, had it not been for your site I might not have heard about it for awhile.

    Thanks,
    Terry

  17. Oops, posted comment in wrong place, sorry.

  18. James above says google said using video was fine — but i have seen on a lot of message boards that people have been getting bounced from google because of video on their sites from you tube, ifilm, google etc…
    Rumor has it now that google owns you tube they are cracking down on video blogs — i have an e-mail into them about this again

  19. not a good idea to put ads close to video because video is surly going to take all the attention n after watching the video a person rather scrolls down to see wht else is in store rather than clicking on the ad.

  20. It is violation of TOS of Google and one will get the adsense account banned by keeping the ads near images and Google is not doing so in youtube is to honour its own commitment.
    Regards
    http://www.indian-share-tips.com

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