AdSense for Forums

Marc was discussing how to to rethink the strategy of AdSense implementation on forums, specifically for Atenesta.net. I originally posted a shorter comment on Marc’s blog but thought of blogging about it here as I have an additional tip to add which require some visuals.

Forums are one of the hardest web property to monetize in terms of AdSense conversion. CTRs are way below 1% (from experience, it’s 0.3%) and the usual strategies for blogs do not apply. In fact, they’re totally opposite — instead of blending the ads, you want them to be more conspicuous (attention-grabbing).

Another tip is that you can actually rotate the color combination of your ads to up to 4 color schemes. To do this, go to the AdSense for Content tab, Color Palettes section. While holding the Ctrl key, click on the color schemes you want to use. You can only use up to 4 schemes so pick the best and most contrasting ones.

It should look like this:

If you are fmailiar with the AdSense code itself, you can edit the color variables in an array like the one below:

google_color_border = [“FDFFCA”,”6699CC”,”003366″,”FF4500″];
google_color_bg = [“FDFFCA”,”003366″,”003366″,”FFEBCD”];
google_color_link = [“0000CC”,”FFFFFF”,”FF6600″,”DE7008″];
google_color_url = [“008000″,”AECCEB”,”99CCFF”,”E0AD12″];
google_color_text = [“000000″,”AECCEB”,”FFFFFF”,”8B4513″];

Once implemented, the color schemes will randomly rotate for every impression. That way, your forum members/visitors will more likely to notice the ads and hopefully click on the relevant ones.