Comments on: Big Honkin’ Ads … Do They Work?

By: Pest Control Products

Pest Control Products — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 06:27:37 +0000

I’ve done very little with advertising on my sites beyond AdSense … maybe it’s time to give it a try with a “big honkin’ ad” (BTW, did you copyright that term?!)

I do definitely see better results from my sites which have the AdSense blogs front and center, so it makes sense that the big ads would do well.

By: jfc

jfc — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:49:06 +0000

Hi Guy,

First of all, I had to retrieve your comment from the Akismet filter. It seems someone incorrectly marked you as spam at some point. Go to Akismet and ask them to fix this false positive for you.

I agree. If your site is entirely about promoting your own services you don’t want ads that take away potential customers.

By: Guy McLaren

Guy McLaren — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:59:58 +0000

I have no ads and thus no click through on my personal site, Its my goal to attract custom, not to send tham elsewhere. On one of my sites I have ads that are not a standard size and get better click through than I ever achieved with adsense or small ads, strange that

By: Sunday Blog Review, Second Edition | Yimto Affiliate Marketing Blog

Sunday Blog Review, Second Edition | Yimto Affiliate Marketing Blog — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:43:02 +0000

[…] Failure? This post is fantastic! Great discussion, he even gets some Akismet devs joining in! Big Honkin’ Ads … Do They Work? Part 1 of a 3 part series, very good analysis. Your Blog Monetization Options: Part I - […]

By: jfc

jfc — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:25:04 +0000

Thanks Mike,

I see you’re also discussing the products in a post as well. That’s one of the things I kind of mention in my follow-up article to this one.

By: jfc

jfc — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:22:15 +0000

Thanks again for the inspiration Colin,

You might have noticed that I’m using different sizes for the ads, ranging from about 300×180 up to 600×300. This makes the sidebar change appearance between page loads which I think helps draw attention to it.

By: Mike Olbinski

Mike Olbinski — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:29:46 +0000

Good write up, I have some 125s up now, and I think I’ve gotten some clicks, but not much.

Of course, only been a few days

By: Colin King

Colin King — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:57:55 +0000

I think that it’s a matter of attention. With a load of the 125’s it is to uniform for the eye to notice, whereas the one or two big honking ads they are so different that they command out attention. It’s good to see that they are converting as well

By: jfc

jfc — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:49:22 +0000

Hi Caveman,

It took about 10 days or so before I saw anything other than the increase in CTR. The first thing to check is are visitors clicking the ads. If that’s not happening, then it’s back to square one with ad selection. Conversions seem to come at a slower pace on blogs than they do with targeted landing pages.

On managing the ads, it isn’t as “fire and forget” as Adsense. Vic wrote about a program you can use to help manage it: Ad Software You Really Need. It’s an important program you’re going to need if you insert ads directly into posts. If you’re doing full site sidebar ads it isn’t quite as necessary but still useful. Ad selection and the ad provider also figures into it. I’ll cover some of this in my next post in this series.

By: Caveman

Caveman — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:10:49 +0000

As you know, I just switched from Adsense to affiliate ads. I haven’t made a single cent yet. It’s only been 6 days, so I’m thinking I’ll let it run for a month also to test it out.

It’s hard to manage all of these ads. I’ve had some discontinue and not even tell me. It’s like I have to check on it everyday. Big hassle so far compared to adsense.

-Caveman