he advertising team at Le Sentinelle, one of the largest publishers in Africa and owners of L’express, approached AdNgin. They had previously attempted to optimize their Adsense using Adsense Experiments but found it lacking the necessary sophistication and comprehensiveness of modern conversion optimization tools.

1. How L’express
Increased AdSense
Revenue by 18%
LEARN HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR ADSENSE FOR INCREASED REVENUW

2. How Does Google Share Revenue
with Publishers?
 in early 2015, Google finally disclosed what percentage of
advertising revenue is shared with publishers.
 Google increased revenue sharing with its publishers to 68% of the
recognized revenue [1].
 However, AdSense publishers have witnessed decreased earnings.
 WHY?

3. Why Have AdSense Earnings Gone
Down?
 Publisher coalitions are gobbling up high paying ads through
programmatic media buying.
 High paying advertisers prefer to display their ads on YouTube or
other selected placements they trust.
 Google Revenue sharing with AdSense publishers has decreased by
a whopping 50% in the last 10 years [2].
 RESULT: Adsense partner publishers are faced with lower CPCs and
eventually lower overall revenue.

4.  BANNER BLINDNESS
 visitor learns where advertising is normally located on a website and the
brain can learn to ignore it even on a subconscious level.
 Banner blindness has been a main cause for revenue contraction and
lower CTRs for publishers and for fewer conversions for advertisers.
 AD BLOCKERS
 Less Ad Impressions mean less possibility of capitalizing on these
impressions and getting paid fropm advertisiers.
 The combination of banner blindness and ad blockers mean that
every viewable impression is more valuable than before.
 PUBLISHERS MUST OPTIMIZE THEIR VIEWABLE AD IMPRESSIONS FOR
CLICKS.
Why Have AdSense Earnings Gone
Down?

5. How Can You Increase Your
AdSense Earnings?
 Optimize your AdSense for CTR. [3]
 Use a multi-arm bandit testing platforms to optimize your AdSense.
 Create a variation of your page setup
 Define new locations for your ads.
 Define new ad sizes.
 Define a color palette.
 Optimize for Mobile vs. Desktop.
 Create multi-page variations.
 Observe your layout’s performance.
 Optimize as necessary.

6. How L’express Optimized Their
AdSense Layout to Increase Earnings.
HOMEPAGE TEST
Version 2:
• One ad unit placed on
the left side vertical
• two ad units placed on
the right side vertical.
Version 1:
• Two ad units placed on
the left side vertical
• one ad unit placed on
the right side vertical.
Each ad unit
rotated between
300×250 ads and
300×600 ads.

7. How
L’express
Optimized
Their
AdSense
Layout to
Increase
Earnings.
HOMEPAGE TEST

8. How L’express Optimized Their
AdSense Layout to Increase Earnings.
HOMEPAGE TEST

9. How L’express Optimized Their
AdSense Layout to Increase Earnings.
HOMEPAGE TEST RESULTS
 For overall CTR, Version 2 was the clear winner with a CTR higher by
49% than version 1.
 The top ad of the left side vertical performed the best out of all ad
unit variations.
 On the right hand side the 300×250 banner performed better that
300×600 by over 5% CTR.

10. How L’express Optimized Their
AdSense Layout to Increase Earnings.
ARTICLES PAGE TEST
Hypothesis: wider ads would perform better than narrower ones.
Version 2:
• Location: In-content
• 125x125
• 200x90
• 180x90
• Color palette testing
• Mobile vs. Desktop setup
Version 1:
• Location: Right Hand
Side Bar
• 300x250
• 300x600
• Rotation of image ads
only.

11. How L’express Optimized Their
AdSense Layout to Increase Earnings.
ARTICLES PAGE TEST
Hypothesis: wider ads would perform better than narrower ones.

12. How L’express Optimized Their
AdSense Layout to Increase Earnings.
ARTICLES PAGE TEST
Hypothesis: wider ads would perform better than narrower ones.
 300×600 ads received a clickthrough rate
that was almost 8% higher than the 300×250
equivalent.
 In-content: 200×90 version producing a CTR
higher by almost 10%.
 The proportional difference in CTR between
the 180×90 ad to the 125×125 ad was less
than 4%.
 You’re not going to achieve proportional
correlation between CTR and increased
banner sizes over time.
 You have to find that sweet spot where
you’re maximizing your revenue from
AdSense and not annoying your visitors with
over obtrusive ads.

13. How L’express Optimized Their
AdSense Layout to Increase Earnings.
OVERALL RESULTS
 increase of 69% in CTR and 18% in their Adsense revenue.
 Achieved in a short period of time and despite diminished CPCs.
 ads per page view decreased by 9.6%