Almost lost a Performancing Ad

Around last week, I was doing an audit of all my ad inventories here on my blog and apart from thinking of reformatting Adsense ads, I thought it would also be time to remove the TLA affiliate links and the Performancing Network Ads.

My TLA affiliates stopped converting last month so I guess everyone I could possibly refer had signed up already. The other obvious one to remove would have been the Performancing Network ads. Never got one since they launched it a few months back.

Now, imagine my surprise when i got a notice to approve a pending ad from Performancing, my first sale ever from this network.

Had I had the chance to work further on my blog last week, I would have already removed that and consequently lost the sale.

So, what did I learn from this little encounter?

• Maximize, then minimize. Use as many appropriate ad campaigns in your blog as possible without compromising too much real estate. Then, shave off the ones that are converting the least one at a time.
• Check out thy neighbor. Look at similar blogs in your niche if they are getting ads on that same campaign or ad network. Also compare the traffic and see if they’ve had any luck with the ad network. More or less, either you have too many competition on that arena or advertisers aren’t interested or available for your niche.
• Take a second breathe. Reconsider if you really want to remove that non-converting ad this soon. I usually give 2 to 3 months leeway for new ad networks.

I also sometimes look at it as a design element (the ads, I mean) that when blend nicely with your design could actually enhance user experience.