Online Arbitrage Case Study: How Trendelier Increased AdSense Earnings by 217%
Digital Marketing

Online Arbitrage Case Study: How Trendelier Increased AdSense Earnings by 217%

There are so many ways to increase your Google AdSense earnings. Our very ambitious goal is to cover all possible optimizations under the bright light of the Google logo. But, with all the different ways to increase your AdSense earnings, we still love talking about ourselves.

And our favorite topic to talk about is how AdSense publishers can use our testing platform to increase earnings.

The following is a short version of a case study on how we were able to leverage our test platform to grow Trendelier.com, one of the largest entertainment news websites, AdSense RPM by 217% in 5 weeks.

Who is Trendeleier.com?

Trendeleier.com is a classic online arbitrage website.

As a website that earns 100% of its revenue from advertising, Trendelier relies heavily on the success of its monetization channels. One of Trendelier’s main sources of income is Google AdSense.

For a while, the website’s AdSense earnings had hit a wall. Their teams spend a tremendous amount of time searching, creating, and curating their content with truly amazing results: millions of people visit their website per month, their content constantly goes viral, and their engagement metrics are…impressive, more impressive. .

With so much content on the front lines, they have very little time and manpower to fully optimize their ad networks and maximize their ad revenue.

Trendelier’s account manager quickly set up different ad layouts to maximize your Google AdSense CTR:

What experiments did Trendelier perform?

mobile experiment

The first version they created was targeted at a popular article that receives a significant amount of mobile traffic. The variation consisted of only 2 ad units.

Why do you only ask for 2 ad units? Why not use the maximum?

Because a pageview is a pageview. If you didn’t see a click on the first two ads displayed on the page, it’s unlikely you’ll see a click on the third ad displayed… Go ahead and try it.

Assumption: Two ads can generate more revenue than three ads.

1:2 variation ad unit layout

This variation showed 2 Google AdSense ads. The former was placed below the title, while the latter was placed just above the navigation buttons.

This variation saw an overall click-through rate of 2.67%

Variation 2: 3 ad unit layout

If the first variation showed two ads, then you guessed it, the second one showed three ads.

The first ad was placed above the headline with a second ad just below it. The final ad was placed just above the navigation buttons as in the first variation.

This variation saw an overall click-through rate of 2.08%

Results

Overall, Variation 1 increased CTR by 28% over Variation 2. This increase in CTR caused a 44% increase in RPM. The control received almost no traffic during the experiments.

desktop experiment

Once again, this experiment is designed to test a certain hypothesis. One that has become common among most online publishers.

Hypothesis: In-content ads perform better

The whole premise of banner blindness and native advertising is really based on the notion that readers are blind to ads placed outside of the content vertical and have trained their eyes to see only the content vertical of the page. .

Variation 1: Sidebar Ad Unit

The first variation consists of two ad units in the content with one ad unit in the sidebar.

The sidebar ad unit was placed outside of this vertical and as part of a sidebar that displays links and ads to other pieces of content. For the purposes of this screenshot, we’ve disabled all other advertisers, so you see “ad” instead of the other ads displayed, but trust us, they’re there.

This variation saw an overall CTR of 2.56%

Variation 2 – In-Feed Heavy

So if the first variation showed 2 ads in the content and one ad in the sidebar, then this one, you guessed it, shows all three AdSense ads within the content section, or feed, of the page.

Native advertising owes much of its success to its content features. 53% of consumers watch native ads more often than display ads. One of the reasons is, without a doubt, because of its location within the content feed.

In reality, however, this variation provided an overall CTR of 1.75%.

Results

There is a lot of research out there that will tell you that your visitors see your native ads more than banner ads. It may all be fine and true. However, what you should be asking yourself is if they get clicked more.

Judging from previous Trendelier experiments, the answer is no. The “native-style” in-feed ad layout did not receive a higher click-through rate than the classic layout.

In reality, the classic layout outperformed the “native layout” by an astonishing 46%, resulting in a whopping 68% increase in RPM.

But what does all this mean?

Let’s face it, most fashion news websites monetize their traffic with CPC networks, and when your website has a strong focus on ROI, click-through rates that are even a fraction higher can have a significant impact. in your results.

That is why it is important that you take the following two suggestions:

  1. A pageview is a pageview. With our system, you can deliver the ad with the highest CTR first on the page, and if that ad doesn’t convert a click, chances are the other ads on the page won’t either. This unique capability allows our users to show fewer ads on the page and get a higher overall CTR and RPM for the page.
  2. In-feed means more eyeballs, not more clicks. Ads placed within the content feed are more likely to be noticed, but not necessarily more clicks.

Do you think your website is different? Start using the tips above and see what results you get, then come back here and show us how wrong (deleted) we were.

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