wangarific

Everywhere you turn, whether it’s on the internet or in real life, there’s something known as “conventional wisdom.” Conventional wisdom can be a boon in real life but it can lead to mistakes online. This is because in the real world, there are very few unique situations where conventional wisdom fails. There are fewer variables, so the “don’t swim thirty minutes after eating” bit of advice is probably smart for anyone (unless you love cramps).

When it comes to the internet, there are so many different variables and factors that conventional wisdom is useless. Fortunately, you can test anything yourself, at almost no cost, and find the answer for yourself.

Google Adsense is one of the most popular and easiest ways to monetize your website. If you’re just starting out, I wouldn’t focus too much time on this because you should focus on producing more content. If you get to the point where you’re seeing a few thousand visitors a day, it’ll be worth spending a few minutes a week testing layouts and color palettes to maximize earnings.

So how do you test palettes? (this is the colors and fonts of the adsense block, not where they are placed)

Simple – use PHP’s rand() function to generate a random number (0 or 1) and then display an ad block. Presumably it’ll display each block 50% of the time. When you design the ad blocks, be sure to add channel tracking so you can look in the reports to see the performance of each.

<?php 
$test = rand(0, 1);
if ($test) { ?>
     // First adsense block
<?php } else { ?>
     // Second adsense block
<?php }
?>

If you want to test more than 2, you can just change the rand function to 0,2 (for three options) and add more if blocks. 0,3 for four options, etc.

Be sure to give it enough impressions to show a significant difference. That’s why I recommended doing this when you have a few thousand visitors a day (since you’re splitting them between the two blocks). If you have a typical CTR of 2%, that’s only 20 clicks on 1,000 impressions. Let it run a few days and then come back to see the results, you want a few thousand in each and a significant difference (that’s up to you to decide) to make a decision.

Also, play with a bunch of different palettes. The current Adsense palette on Bargaineering was the optimal palette out of about a dozen that I tested (including some ridiculously ugly ones just to see if the discord led to more clicks… it didn’t). Don’t test too many at once (my max was three at a time, changing very little about the colors) because you’ll just have to wait longer to find a result.

Test test test!