EPIC Council,
Im a bit surprised to report that even though we moved the
google ads on eclipseplugincentral.com from the top banner down to the bottom,
our CTR has actually gone up from 0.20% to 0.22%.
The bad news though is that were only serving up about 10%
of the impressions we did before the new pages were launched because we only
show Google Ads on the home page.
This revenue has become a very interesting stream for us
(expecting to be about $4500 this year) not only because of the analytic data,
but because it is a possible larger revenue stream on other eclipse.org web
properties at some point. Therefore, it is important that we figure out
how to put the Google Ads back throughout the site.
I recall the council had two concerns when we initially
researched putting Google Ads on plugin pages:
1 A plugin page with google ads might end up showing ads
from that organization and visitors might be enticed to click on the ad
rather than the free click through. I.e., it might lead to redundant
spending. For example, if I click on the Tikal Eclipse plugin, there
might be an add from Tikal on the page.
2 Competitors might jump on an organizations plugin page
and divert traffic away.
Here are my thoughts:
-
Until the redesign we had google ads in the banners of
the product pages and I dont recall any complaints arising would it be that
much more harmful if the ads were put back more inline (since there isnt room
in the banner)?
-
Google is pretty smart at figuring out what ads to put
somewhere if people arent clicking through because there are clearer links
in the plugin listing, theyll show up less.
-
To get to a plugin page its likely someone has
already had to trip over several competitive plugins. Would it really be
so harmful if a competitor paid to get a click through where youre possibly
getting clicks for free?
Please advise if Im over simplifying and I can take a
crack at doing some mock ups.
-
Don
