Link Units — Great Little Stocking Fillers
An ad format that has already proved its worth, when used correctly, is link
units.
If you’ve ever bought Christmas presents for children, you’ve probably
bought stocking fillers. You dole out hundreds of bucks on some state-of-the-
art electronic gizmo, toss in a couple of toy cars that cost a dollar each just
to fill up space and give the kid more to unwrap... then watch him spend 90
percent of his time playing with the car that cost 10 percent of your total gift
budget.
Ad Link units have the potential to be equally profitable.
They’re very small, almost unnoticeable... but when used well, they can be
extremely effective.
Ad Link units let you place a box on your site that contains four or five links.
They come in sizes ranging from 20 x 90 to 200 x 90, and are really meant
to be placed on a sidebar.
Because you can place both Ad Link units as well as other ad units on the
page, you might find that the choice helps: if a user doesn’t spot something
interesting in one type of ad block, he might spot it on another.
Where Ad Links differ from other types of ads is that they only display a list
of topics that Google believes are relevant to the content of your pages. They
don’t display the ads themselves. When a visitor clicks on a topic, Google
pops up a new window with targeted ads.
It can be argued that the Ad Links are ineffective because like video ads,
people have to go through two clicks in order for you to get paid. That’s
right, once again, you’re only getting paid for the second click (but that does
mean you can check to see which ads your users are being served.)
But it can also be argued that if someone is
taking the time to click on a topic, then they are
probably very interested in the link, and are
likely to click an actual advertisement on the
resulting page. Some people have found that
just about everyone who clicks on an Ad Link will
click on the ads that appear on the next page.
I have tested Ad Links on multiple sites and
have seen vast differences in results. That
makes it more difficult to say whether or not
they are for you.
In the first case, I placed the Ad Links on an
information-based site with a very general
audience. The results were nothing to write
home about. Let's just say that you could just
about buy a large candy bar with the CPM I saw.
In the second case, I placed the Ad Links on a product specific site with a
narrow audience. The results were fantastic! We're talking about a CPM that
is greater than what someone might make flipping burgers in one day.
The conclusions should be obvious. If you’re going to use an Ad Links unit
campaign. You need to put them:
1. On a site with a specific field of interest. A general site will give
you general ads — and few clicks.
2. Above the fold with few other links. For Ad Links, this is crucial: If
your users are going to click a link, it should be a link that gives you
money.
It’s also a good idea to keep your Ad Link units for sites with high-paying
keywords. If someone comes to your site seeking out information or a
product on a top-notch keyword, they tend to be more likely to click as a
result.
There are two kinds of link units: vertical units and horizontal units.
Vertical link units are great slotted into sidebars. They just look like a natural
extension of the link list.
But horizontal link units can be at least as effective. Since they were
introduced, they really have become an extremely useful tool.
Some users have reported increases in CTR as high as 200 percent using
these units!
Instead of piling the links one on top of the other—which is great for putting
above lists of links but stand out too clearly when placed in text—the
horizontal ads blend in perfectly when placed on pages with articles.
Horizontal Ad Link units are great for inserting into articles and show very
clearly which keywords your site is generating.
You can still only use one Ad Link unit per page and users still have to click
twice before you get paid but they’re definitely worth slipping into a long
article. You probably shouldn’t put them at the bottom of a page where
they’ll be very easy to miss, but there are plenty of other places where these
sorts of ads can work very, very well.
For example, a horizontal ad unit can be a great alternative to a leaderboard.
It’s much more subtle and takes up less space on the page — definitely
something to experiment with to see which of the two brings you the highest
revenues.
Or you could use them to separate forum or blog entries. As a horizontal
unit, they can be very effective as frames that give people somewhere easy
to go when they reach the end of a text unit.
One great use for horizontal link units though is on directory pages. If you
have a Web page that contains tables of links, slipping a horizontal link unit
above or below them — or both — can make the ads look like a part of the
directory.
It almost makes you want to build a directory just to try it out!
An ad format that has already proved its worth, when used correctly, is link
units.
If you’ve ever bought Christmas presents for children, you’ve probably
bought stocking fillers. You dole out hundreds of bucks on some state-of-the-
art electronic gizmo, toss in a couple of toy cars that cost a dollar each just
to fill up space and give the kid more to unwrap... then watch him spend 90
percent of his time playing with the car that cost 10 percent of your total gift
budget.
Ad Link units have the potential to be equally profitable.
They’re very small, almost unnoticeable... but when used well, they can be
extremely effective.
Ad Link units let you place a box on your site that contains four or five links.
They come in sizes ranging from 20 x 90 to 200 x 90, and are really meant
to be placed on a sidebar.
Because you can place both Ad Link units as well as other ad units on the
page, you might find that the choice helps: if a user doesn’t spot something
interesting in one type of ad block, he might spot it on another.
Where Ad Links differ from other types of ads is that they only display a list
of topics that Google believes are relevant to the content of your pages. They
don’t display the ads themselves. When a visitor clicks on a topic, Google
pops up a new window with targeted ads.
It can be argued that the Ad Links are ineffective because like video ads,
people have to go through two clicks in order for you to get paid. That’s
right, once again, you’re only getting paid for the second click (but that does
mean you can check to see which ads your users are being served.)
But it can also be argued that if someone is
taking the time to click on a topic, then they are
probably very interested in the link, and are
likely to click an actual advertisement on the
resulting page. Some people have found that
just about everyone who clicks on an Ad Link will
click on the ads that appear on the next page.
I have tested Ad Links on multiple sites and
have seen vast differences in results. That
makes it more difficult to say whether or not
they are for you.
In the first case, I placed the Ad Links on an
information-based site with a very general
audience. The results were nothing to write
home about. Let's just say that you could just
about buy a large candy bar with the CPM I saw.
In the second case, I placed the Ad Links on a product specific site with a
narrow audience. The results were fantastic! We're talking about a CPM that
is greater than what someone might make flipping burgers in one day.
The conclusions should be obvious. If you’re going to use an Ad Links unit
campaign. You need to put them:
1. On a site with a specific field of interest. A general site will give
you general ads — and few clicks.
2. Above the fold with few other links. For Ad Links, this is crucial: If
your users are going to click a link, it should be a link that gives you
money.
It’s also a good idea to keep your Ad Link units for sites with high-paying
keywords. If someone comes to your site seeking out information or a
product on a top-notch keyword, they tend to be more likely to click as a
result.
There are two kinds of link units: vertical units and horizontal units.
Vertical link units are great slotted into sidebars. They just look like a natural
extension of the link list.
But horizontal link units can be at least as effective. Since they were
introduced, they really have become an extremely useful tool.
Some users have reported increases in CTR as high as 200 percent using
these units!
Instead of piling the links one on top of the other—which is great for putting
above lists of links but stand out too clearly when placed in text—the
horizontal ads blend in perfectly when placed on pages with articles.
Horizontal Ad Link units are great for inserting into articles and show very
clearly which keywords your site is generating.
You can still only use one Ad Link unit per page and users still have to click
twice before you get paid but they’re definitely worth slipping into a long
article. You probably shouldn’t put them at the bottom of a page where
they’ll be very easy to miss, but there are plenty of other places where these
sorts of ads can work very, very well.
For example, a horizontal ad unit can be a great alternative to a leaderboard.
It’s much more subtle and takes up less space on the page — definitely
something to experiment with to see which of the two brings you the highest
revenues.
Or you could use them to separate forum or blog entries. As a horizontal
unit, they can be very effective as frames that give people somewhere easy
to go when they reach the end of a text unit.
One great use for horizontal link units though is on directory pages. If you
have a Web page that contains tables of links, slipping a horizontal link unit
above or below them — or both — can make the ads look like a part of the
directory.
It almost makes you want to build a directory just to try it out!
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