Banner Ad Placement Study

Theory: Ads next to the scroll bar will generate higher click-through rate

Method

Two ad locations were tested for this study, next to the right scroll bar and across the top of the page. Each location was tested for 1 week. Since the ads placed on the right side of the page are smaller ads, this experiment required two different size ads, 468 x 60 for the top and 125 x 125 for the side. The content of both ads for a given company were as similar as possible given the different shapes. The goal was to run the studies on high traffic pages.

Each of the boxes shown below represents the web screen (the visible area on user monitor, the actual page can be much longer). The smaller boxes represent the ad locations on the screen. The name of the company whose ads were shown is given above the boxes. The URL of the page on Webreference.com is shown between the two rows of boxes. Each column then represents the page and company. Each row represents the ad location being shown on the web page during that week.

Results

Listed below are the results from the study. Hypothesis testing was used to test the statistical significance of the results. View hypothesis testing calculations.

Note: The links to the illustrations of the advertisements contain both locations in the study on the same page. Data was collected at each location for approximately 1 week.

Javascript Tip of the Week Page (view advertisements on page)

Javascript Previous Tip of the Week Page (view advertisements on page)

Optimizing Web Graphics Page (view advertisements on page)

Gif Animation Page (view advertisements on page)

Conclusions

Based on the above results, we conclude that the placement of the ad on the side of the page, next to the right scroll bar, increased click-through an average of 228% over placement at the top of the page. Part of this increased click-through could be due to the fact that Webreference.com does not typically place ads next to the scroll bar. Current users may be accustomed to the standard ad placement across the top of the page. As a result, those ads may have reduced impact.

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