Yahoo’s Ad Placement Tips
Yahoo has posted a blog entry about positioning ads for the best click-through rates. It is interesting to compare this with Google’s Heat Map.
Both agree that the best positioning is just above the main content on the page. After that though, the opinions differ a little. Google’s heat map suggests four places as the secondary positions: 1) On the left hand side below the top level navigation , 2) In the center below the top level navigation, 3) On the left side of the content, and 4) Below the primary content. Yahoo’s advice is: “In general, Margaret has a found that the second most active placement in terms of click-through tends to be the right-hand rail or margin.”
I think this is a useful reminder that what works on one site, may not work on another. The key is to experiment on your own site and see which works best yourself.
Digger Said,
May 11, 2006 @ 9:55 am
Or Margaret is completey clueless and it proves just how out of touch with online advertising that Yahoo is.
While for some rare sites the right navbar may perform, 9 time out of 10 left navbar is where it’s at from what I’ve found and what others have found through experimentation.
Danni R. Said,
March 22, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
After 5 years of non-stop testing, monitoring, tweaking, and watching various types of advertisements, which include banners, text, and CPC ads on 12 different websites, I have come to the conclusion that ads, no matter what size, what color, what font, perform best in the areas identified on the Google AdSense eye-tracking/hot zones map.
The right-hand rail, as suggested by Margaret has always been a complete “dud”. I can say this for sure after 5 years, on 12 well visited and well ranked websites for medical assistants, and realated healthcare students and professionals.
Just my 2 cents worth.