Most of the websites out there are created with the intent of revenue generation. A site can generate a hands…
Most of the websites out there are created with the intent of revenue generation. A site can generate a handsome revenue by creating an effective ad inventory and placing ads over there. For that purpose a new publisher first needs to look for ad placements on his site. Following is the guide to an efficient ad placement for a nascent publisher.
A publisher can place ad units at almost any space over the webpage. Yet there are certain standard and non standard ad placements that are highly recommended to follow in the first place. Based on performance one can relocate those ad units accordingly in the days to come.
Let’s discuss standard and non standard ad placements.
STANDARD AD PLACEMENTS:
There are certain ad placements that are referred to as standard ad placements. These are actually those spaces over the webpage that are usually followed by the publishers to place their ad across the world. These come in two forms ; ATF and BTF. ATF or above the fold ads, as the name indicates, are those ads that are displayed right away on the screen, without scrolling down, as the user opens a certain webpage.BTF or below the fold ads are those that aren’t displayed as the webpage is open but start displaying as the user starts scrolling down. Standard ad units type includes following ad units based on their location on the webpage.
Header:
As the name indicates it is an ATF ad unit that is placed right on top of a webpage. It is usually a 728×90 leaderboard, a 970×90 large leaderboard or a 970×250 billboard for desktop. Whereas on mobile sites usually a 300×250 medium banner is run.
Sidebar:
Sid bar is the ad unit placed on the left or right side of the content on the web page. It is called the left or right sidebar accordingly. The ad unit sizes used on side bars are usually vertical banner 120×240, skyscraper 120x600or medium rectangle 300×250. There could be, and usually are, more than one sidebar ad units on a webpage. First side bar is usually ATF or above the fold where as the remaining are BTF or below the fold. These could be used towards any side of the webpage but mostly are used towards the right side bar.
In-content:
In-content or in-app are the ad units that lie just in between the content. If a user scrolls down the content page and just after the content an ad appears and after that again the content kicks in, then it is known as in-content ad. It is almost always BTF or below the fold. For that purpose 300×250 medium rectangle is considered to be the best ad unit size. It is recommended to place not more than one in content ad per fold of the webpage so that user experience over the webpage is not adversely affected.
Footer:
It is, as the name indicates the very last ad unit on a webpage towards the end. It is always below the fold. Usual ad unit sizes for footers are also leaderboard 728×90, large leaderboard 970×90 and billboard 970×250.
Non-Standard Ad Units:
There are some non standard ad units as well that are not followed by publishers in general but still many publishers opt for these pertaining to their good performance on their websites. These include following:
Sticky:
As the name indicates, these are the units that stick to the screen and remain anchored to the screen even if you scroll down or up. These units could be placed on the top position called top anchor, on the bottom known as bottom anchor or side bars known as sidebar anchors or sidebar sticky.
With these ad units a close button must come as default unlike standard ads. So that, the viewer may close the ad any time if s/he does not like it. Once closed by the user, this shouldn’t appear again during the same session or within a specific time period. In case you care about user experience the most, you can put a time limit of 24 hours. However, in our experience, a time limit of 60 minutes helps you attain a sweet spot between user experience and maximum revenues.
Out Stream Video:
These are the video ads that do not follow any regular ad unit placement. These are hardcoded to the backend of the site. As the user scrolls through the website, these can appear anywhere without following any regular ad unit placement pattern. With these video ads as well an option of close button should come as default. Users can close these ads anytime during scrolling. The close button only comes with the non-standard ad units and not with the standard ad units.
