Best Ad Placement?

[Jako]

I'm having trouble getting clicks on my site Coupon Source (http://coupon.sc). I've used both Yahoo Publisher and Adsense, but both aren't generating that many clicks.

Do you have any suggestions on where I should put the ads? Currently I have them primarliy on my hosting coupons (http://coupon.sc/?cs-action=coupons.view&type=host) and registrars coupons (http://coupon.sc/?cs-action=coupons.view&type=registrar) page. But I also have them rotating at the footer.

Do you have any suggestions on where to place them to try to increase my clicks?

Thanks.

[Tyler]

What is your CTR? (I want to determine if your CTR is low as "not that many clicks" may actually be a high CTR but just indicative of low traffic)

[Jako]

On Adsense which I just switched to, the CTR is 0.40% and on YPN it was 0.3%.

[Andrew]

A good idea is to put them somewhere people will need to click, such as navigation (like you've done) or between two blocks of text (preferably links), such as on your coupon pages. I actually just noticed, you put ads in the first row of the table, which is really good placement, as some people will sort and click the registrars link so there is a chance for a mis-click on the ad.

Overall, your placement is good, but I would just try adding small block ads between the first and second paragraph just to get a bit more ads on the site for a better chance of 'clickage'.

Sorry I can't be more specific on what to do, as I don't have that much experience on a personal level on advertising, but I based this on hearing other peoples stories and suggestions.

[Jako]

A good idea is to put them somewhere people will need to click, such as navigation (like you've done) or between two blocks of text (preferably links), such as on your coupon pages. I actually just noticed, you put ads in the first row of the table, which is really good placement, as some people will sort and click the registrars link so there is a chance for a mis-click on the ad.

Overall, your placement is good, but I would just try adding small block ads between the first and second paragraph just to get a bit more ads on the site for a better chance of 'clickage'.

Sorry I can't be more specific on what to do, as I don't have that much experience on a personal level on advertising, but I based this on hearing other peoples stories and suggestions.
Thanks for the suggestions, which "first and second paragraph" are you talking about?

[Andrew]

Like, if you have two or more paragraphs of content, or blocks, then place an ad between the first two shown.

[Tyler]

I believe Andrew is referring to something like here: http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=591 with the AdSense square within the text.

[aloksingh]

I think that for a coupons site you should try out CPM programs. They will perhaps pay more. Try ValueClick or CPX Interactive. They have proved to be the best for me.

[charley]

I place the ads inside the text or links. For the public, it looks as text, but they are highlighted links. It really entices you to click on it. I have huge hits resulting from that placement.

[zac439]

I think you should work on content. Once you have great keywords, it will generate links to content users will be interested in. I focused on keywords and just went with the large rectangle banner at top and did great with my adsense.

[rjp]

I see two issues:

1) The horizontal links at the top of the banner advertisement aren't likely to ever get clicked. They're squashed right in between the banner and the top of the page and they're hard to read.

2) The AdSense banner at the bottom might be better if you moved it to the smaller 468 width banner and placed it higher in the content. It looks too much like an ad the way it is now.