AdSense Ad Sizes and Colours

Google AdSense is extremely flexible. You can customise to a great extent the display of the adverts that are displayed on your site.

So, this gives you options as to the size and colours of the adverts to display on your site. Which ones should you go for?

Much experiment has gone on over time by AdSense users. There have been differing philosophies as to what works best.

One method is to make the adverts stand out as much as possible by choosing colours that contrast with the rest of the display of your website. This could be combined with rotating different colour sets so the adverts display differently each time they are viewed - with AdSense you can set up to four colour schemes for each ad placement, from which one is chosen randomly each time an advert impression is served.

The second philosophy is at odds to this - which is to blend the adverts into the site in terms of choosing a colour scheme for the ads (background, links, URLs, text) that matches completely the rest of your site.

The perhaps counter-intuitive result is that the second philosophy consistently outperforms the first. Therefore for best response from your adverts, consider adopting a colour scheme for the adverts that matches the rest of your site.

You can also choose the size of adverts that appear on your website. The best responses seem to be obtained by the larger shapes - therefore consider the large or medium rectangle. You can also get good responses from the so-called skyscraper adverts - long thin rectangular shaped adverts.

Publishers report that the worst response seems to be achieved by the 'standard' banner ad format - yet this is the one that many publishers use because they are so accustomed to it!

How to get the most relevant adverts for your site >>