Back during Halloween, Google wheeled out some holiday-themed ads. If you didnt see them, they looked pretty cool. They had a little pumpkin in the top right-hand corner and the black-bordered ads had pictures of ghosts and witches in the background.
They were made available to all publishers, not just the big ones, and there was a lot of talk about them on the blogs at the time.
The first thing that struck me about these designs was that theyd ruin all the hard work Ive put into blending my ads into my site. I dont use black borders, so putting an ad unit on the site with a thick black border is going to make those units leap off the page. Its going to be pretty clear that they were put on the site by someone other than me. That means the ad units wont come with the recommendation from the publisher that they get when they have the same design as the site.
Having said that, I have to admit that they were eye-catching. Of course, thats not always a good thing. Make your ads too eye-catching and youll run into the sort of ad-blindness that has killed banners. But these ads were made eye-catching by unique pictures that were fun to look at. They were different to anything visitors will have seen before so they wouldnt have minded too much being distracted from what they were reading on the site.
Theres certainly a good chance that people who wouldnt have noticed the ads will have looked at them and clicked.
Or rather, I think theres a good chance but I dont know that for sure because I havent seen the results from people who used those ads. In fact, Im not even sure how easily a publisher would be able to follow the stats from ads like that. Traditionally, the number of visitors to websites falls during holidays so a comparison would have to be made with the same date in a previous year. But the Internet grows and changes so quickly that year-on-year comparisons are fairly meaningless.
In my opinion, those ads are just too darned attractive to ignore. With Christmas coming, if Google do this again, I think the best bet will be to theme your site with pictures of Santa Claus and candy sticks -- effectively blending the site into the ad. Thats pretty unusual but then Christmas is a special time of year!
Joel Comm is The Internet Revenue Expert. Online for over 20 years, Joel teaches people how to make money in the digital age. The recognized authority on Google AdSense, Joel teaches how to multiply your AdSense income at The AdSense Code. To ask Joel Comm a question about making money online, visit Joel invites you to download a free copy of The Internet Money Tree at
A massive change has just happened in the way your site presents ads from Google. You might not have noticed that change or noticed how important it is.
Google turned on their Advertise on this site feature.
Its just a small line that appears at the bottom of your ad unit. It doesnt look like much -- and the line itself isnt much. What really makes the difference though is where it takes the advertiser... and where it can take your income.
When the advertiser clicks on that link, theyre taken to a landing page at Google from where they can open an AdWords account. And heres the thing: you can customize that page.
Now, Im not just talking about the colors. You should certainly match the colors on this page to the colors of your site so that it looks like the advertiser is talking to you -- the publisher of a site he trusts -- rather than Google, a site he might not care a fig about. But you can also add a message, describing your site to encourage advertisers to sign up.
That opens up a whole new world. You, the advertiser and Google all want the same thing: you want your users to click the ads.
I can see no reason then why you shouldnt use the space on the landing page to offer advice to the advertiser about what he should put in the ad. You could mention terms that you know attract the eyes of your users or recommend that he list products that you think your users would be looking for. If you were planning to spend some time discussing the new Xbox for example, you could tell advertisers that for maximum clicks they should make sure that their ad mentions Xbox games or accessories. When you move onto a different subject, you could change the message.
Do you see what this means
Until now, AdSense publishers have had two choices when it came to the ads served on their sites: take it or leave it. Now we have the power to talk directly to at least some of our advertisers and influence the ads we serve. Were going to have to think not only about what we put on the site but also what advertisers should put in the ads.
Thats a huge change.
Joel Comm is The Internet Revenue Expert. Online for over 20 years, Joel teaches people how to make money in the digital age. The recognized authority on Google AdSense, Joel teaches how to multiply your AdSense income at The AdSense Code. To ask Joel Comm a question about making money online, visit Joel invites you to download a free copy of The Internet Money Tree at