ADSENSE ADS UNIT AND CODE UNIT WHICH PAY MORE

It's a question I had
wondered in the past, yet
have never really gotten a
clear answer to, not even
when trying to Google the
answer. Which is better, ad
units or link units? Which
will make you more
money? Sure, there are
multiple answers to this
question depending on
who you ask, and there are
pros and cons to both, but
nobody's given a clear
answer yet, at least that I've
noticed. There's only one
way to get a clear answer
to this question, and that's
experience. Experience and
experimentation (well, ok,
so that's two ways. Here's
candy, smartie.)
First, what are the pros and
cons?
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Here's what I've found to
be the pros and cons of
link units:
The pros for link units
would be, they take up
much less real-estate than
ad units, and their use runs
almost no risk of making a
site or blog look
"spammy". They can have a
higher CTR. Often, when
someone clicks a link unit
and goes to the Google
landing page with the
search results, they might
see more than one
sponsored link that they
like and click both or more,
thus giving you a much
higher CTR. Sometimes, the
ads that show on the
landing page can have a
higher CPC than those that
show on your sites,
especially if your keyword
targeting isn't so hot.
The downsides to link
units? It takes two clicks to
get you any money, rather
than just one click. They
also tend to be far less
consistent than ad units,
and seem to me to be
easier to ignore. And even
though you sometimes get
ads worth a lot of money
per click, you more often
than not get ads that are
worth cents to the click,
rather than dollars.
What are the upsides to ad
units? More consistent
clicks. You're better able to
control the quality of ads
that show up via keyword
targeting. Usually, your ads
will bring in a relatively
consistent amount of
income compared to link
units. And it only takes one
click to get you any money,
as opposed to two clicks.
The ads are more
noticeable, as well, and
more customizeable (e.g.
different ad unit shapes,
image, text, image and
text).
The downside to ad units?
Well, they can look
spammy, for one, or too
ad-heavy. When you get
too ad-heavy, you can get
ad blindness. Also, putting
too many of them results
in a higher chance of
worthless clicks (whereas
the chances of dollar clicks
vs cent clicks are exactly
the same with link units no
matter how many of them
you put on the page). You
can't put them in as many
different places and make
them look as good.
So what is best? It depends,
again. It depends both on
the volume of readers you
get, where they find your
webpage from, and what
your subject matter is. On
my highest-volume site, I
get almost no link unit
clicks - most of my clicks
come on the ad units. I can
go one or two weeks at a
time without getting any
link unit clicks.
On my lower-volume sites
(I'm taking 10 viewers a day
or less), I get far more
clicks on my link units, but
almost no clicks on my ad
units. Here, the subject
matter is far different - the
high-volume sites are
bodybuilding related, and
the low volume sites relate
to government jobs and
trucking jobs. Most of my
clicks are from links
elsewhere, as opposed to
clicks off of Google
searches, because my
Google pagerank stinks and
the competition is too high
to really get anywhere in
any short amount of time.
So for some reason, most
of my clicks on those sites,
come from my link units.
Maybe the link units just
serve more attractive ads,
or maybe my link units on
my bodybuilding sites serve
ads that nobody wants to
click.
So what is the conclusion?
Easy - use both types of
units. It's pointless just to
choose one or the other.
Use the link units only, if
you have a site where you
can't give up real estate to
ads. If you wanna test, go a
week or two with just ad
units, and then follow it up
with a week or two of just
link units. See what your
income, CTR and CPC are.
Then, use that to figure out
what you'll do.