The YPN blog has posted a few ad placement tips based upon eye tracking studies that find that website users view pages in the following pattern:
They recommend a leaderboard ad above the fold between content and the top navigation bar.
Secondly they suggest using vertical skyscrapers to the right of content.
Thirdly they suggest rectangle ads in content.
I find this interesting strategy as it’s a little different from AdSense’s suggested ad placement which suggests the following ‘hot zones’.
The Yahoo advice of ads between content and the top navigational bar fits reasonably well with the AdSense heat map but the skyscraper to the right of content is a point of difference in the advice between the two contextual advertisers advice.
Both suggest ad inside content do well.
Ultimately the last advice they give is probably the main thing to listen to:
Each site is different, and each publisher has different goals,” Margaret notes. “Publishers should experiment with different placement, layouts, Reporting Categories and Ad Targeting combinations to achieve the best outcome.
