I’m hearing tonight from a few bloggers that they’ve received an email from AdSense asking them if they’d like to be involved in a new program that they are running called ‘Custom Placement Packs’.
This seems to be a program that clusters similar sites together to be sold to advertisers as a package. It is based around 300 x 250 pixel rectangle image and text ad units.
To be involved publishers who receive these emails are asked to place the rectangle image/text ad units above the fold and utilize the new ‘ad placement feature’ which labels ad slots.
Update – more discussion on this at digital point and webmaster world.
Here’s the email AdSense have been approaching sites with:
Dear Publisher,
After a recent review of your site, we would like to include xxxx.com in our custom placement packs program. Custom placement packs are selections of individually-reviewed sites designed for our largest brand advertisers.
We would like to feature your site more frequently in these advertiser packages, but to do so, we need you to place more image and text-enabled medium rectangle ad units (300×250) on your site. Visit https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats to see a sample of the medium rectangle unit.
The medium rectangle is the most demanded size among our brand advertisers that utilize these packages for both text and image ads. These advertisers want to ensure they reach visitors on high quality sites like yours, and are willing to bid more for ads prominently displayed on these sites. They require that the units be placed “above the fold” on a page so that the ads are immediately visible to your site’s visitors without scrolling down.
If you decide to add medium rectangle units to your site, please notify us by replying to this email so that we can begin featuring your site in more of our advertiser packages.
We also recommend you use the newly launched ad placements feature to define your ad slots to advertisers so they can bid on specific placements on your site. For instructions on how to create ad placements, please visit https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50691.
I believe this is the first time something like this has been done by an Ad program. Usually it’s been every site for himself or herself, trying their best to get noticed in the ad market.
Another hat-off-to-Google-moment here I suppose. Now I wonder if my site would be included in one of those packs? That would be awesome!
I got the email and made the switch to accommodate. It wasn’t a big deal, since I already had the wide rectangle in the spot that would be best for the 300×250 they wanted. I just switched out that one spot and was done with it.
I wrote back that I made the change, and I did get a real, from-a-person reply within a few hours so it wasn’t entirely automated as some at Webmasterworld suggest.
Since then I’ve been watching my CTR and eCPM carefully, and it hasn’t changed enough to cause worry that I made the wrong decision (would have yanked the new format if it went down) so I’ll give it some time to see if it translates to more $$.
I got the email almost 2 weeks ago. At first I was excited but then I saw dozens of others getting the same email and I thought it was either a scam or just some mass-mailing from Google. I sent a reply email about it but didn’t get a reply from Google for like a week. They basically summarized what was in the original email.
So I too did as the email said and am giving it a go. Still haven’t seen much of a difference, although the last two days the eCPM has been gently creeping up (not enough to make a difference yet, though).
[…] Darren Rowse berättar om ett mejl som går ut till bloggare från AdSense. De undrar om bloggare vill vara med i ett “custom placement pack”. En av bloggarna har dock fått detta erjudande gällande en sajt med ett foto på familjen, inte uppdaterat på sju år. Nåväl. Det tycks handla om att gruppera flera bloggar i ett annonspaket. […]
Since I don’t use any of the specified ad formats, I don’t think it’s worth my readers’ trust and the navigation experience.
Allen.H
I changed my adblocks to 350s. CTR has halved. I’ve just changed the adblocks back to the old format – and CTR has gone back to it’s normal rate.
I got the email a week ago or so, made a change on my main site to accomodate their request, and am waiting to see if there is any long term shift.
I did get a reply confirming the changes I’d made, and suggesting a sepcific label to put on the ad placement to ensure advertisors can spot the specific ad target.
Not seen any huge shift in earnings, although no drop either.
[…] Bloggers keep day jobs: A penny for your thoughts? Kevin Vahey has done a good deal better, turning a personal gripe into $1,000 a year of supplemental income. An interesting article in the Monitor about bloggers, contextual advertising and revenues from blogs. Darren is references heavily and there is some discussion of the breakdown of Google’s revenue from AdSense and the distribution of the money thereof. Inrelated news, have you heard of the AdSense ‘Custom Placement Packs’ Program? From all the buzz in the advertising sphere, the 125×125 blog ad segment is about to heat up tremendously. This competition among advertisers and advertising service providers is going to be very good for bloggers. (No Ratings Yet) Loading … […]
[…] Bloggers keep day jobs: A penny for your thoughts? Kevin Vahey has done a good deal better, turning a personal gripe into $1,000 a year of supplemental income. An interesting article in the Monitor about bloggers, contextual advertising and revenues from blogs. Darren is references heavily and there is some discussion of the breakdown of Google’s revenue from AdSense and the distribution of the money thereof. Inrelated news, have you heard of the AdSense ‘Custom Placement Packs’ Program? From all the buzz in the advertising sphere, the 125×125 blog ad segment is about to heat up tremendously. This competition among advertisers and advertising service providers is going to be very good for bloggers. […]
I got the email about two weeks ago.
I think it might has to do with Google video ads.
http://www.sabahan.com/2007/01/30/the-reason-for-the-adsense-placement-packs-emails/
My idea is that “Custom Placement Packs’” is related to:
—
https://www.google.com/adsense/success
Probably I am wrong.