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Adlink Units: Are They Worth It?
When Google first launched AdSense, there was some skepticism from
publishers. As much as most people were blown away by the idea of ads that were
targeted to the content of a Web page there was the question of whether users,
used to banners and skyscrapers, would click on something that looked so
different.
Boy, were those doubters wrong! AdSense has more than proved its worth to
advertisers, users and publishers.
A similar sense of skepticism greeted Google's launch of AdLink units. With
nothing more than a list of links (which then lead to the ads), these units
contain even less information than a traditional AdSense unit. And the user has
to click twice before the publisher gets paid. That makes them sound about as
welcoming as a winter barbeque in Siberia.
It took a while for publishers to discover that actually AdLink units weren't
as bad as they looked, and that with a smart bit of positioning they could
actually take advantage of the way some pages are laid out. In fact, for some
designs, they were able to reach parts that other AdSense units just couldn't
reach!
And best of all, publishers quickly discovered that once someone clicked on
an AdLink unit, they would almost always click on the ad that followed. That did
their revenues the world of good and removed the two-click doubt.
The old AdLink units then were effective, but fairly limited. They were great
if you knew the one or two places on the page to use them but not so good if you
didn't. Recently though, Google has launched horizontal AdLink units that have
taken these ads into a whole new realm. Because they fit neatly across a page
they're useful for a much broader range of page designs and are much more
flexible. On the other hand though, they're now competing for space directly
with the traditional ad units, making it even harder for publishers to figure
out which ads to place where.
Is all this good news for publishers or bad news?
It's great news for savvy publishers who have more tools to maximize their
AdSense revenues (and know what to do with those tools) but it's bad news for
people who don't make the effort to learn how use AdSense - and now have more
ways to miss out.
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