Ezoic
*Please note that if setting placeholders up for the first time, this article should only be read after learning about how to use Ezoic's Chrome Extension - the quickest and easiest way to add placeholders to your site - here.
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1. Understand Where Users Spend Time on your Site
3. Use Placeholders of Every Position Type
5. Placeholders above the Fold
6. Use a Range of Placeholder Types
Ezoic Ad Tester is a very powerful tool that can drastically increase your ad revenue from your site. It is capable of testing millions of combinations of ad locations, colors, and sizes with minimal work on your part. However, there are a few basic things you should do to make sure you get the most out of the Ezoic Ad Tester.
1. Understand Where Users Spend Time on your Site
To best optimize your site with Ezoic for monetization, it's necessary to spend some time finding out about a typical user journey. You can find your top landing pages on Google Analytics by going to Site Content > Landing Pages
You should then check your placeholder setup on these top landing pages by device. You can also do this under Content > Landing Pages at Ezoic once there is data in our Big Data Analytics showing up:
You can find this under the "Analytics" tab in your dashboard. This article shows you how to navigate Big Data Analytics
Insert as many placeholders as you possibly can where there is the content to support it. Depending on content length, most publishers see the best results with at least 15 placeholders per page. Obviously, the system will not show an ad in every placeholder - it all depends on the preference of each individual user - here is more information on how they work. Think of a placeholder as a place where an ad can potentially go, rather than a normal ad tag.
We encourage you to enable placeholders to auto-detect "similar pages" within the Ezoic Chrome Extension, (which you can download from the Chrome Web Store) and that you then deactivate the extension and browse landing pages with a different layout, theme or setup to check these placeholders have translated across in the correct positions. If, when you have first inserted the placeholder, you find it does not translate across correctly, try removing certain sizes or aligning the placeholder differently with the Chrome Extension:
3. Use Placeholders of Every Position Type
You should insert a placeholder of every position type on each of your pages where there is content to support it. These should go in the following descending order down the page: top of page, under page title, under first paragraph, under second paragraph, bottom of page, in-content 1, in-content 2 etc. You should also add top of page sidebar, mid sidebar, and sidebar bottom where applicable. In the Chrome Extension, each 'Position Type' is shown as a different colored placeholder - which can be useful when you are checking!
Below is an example of how they will then appear when listed in the Ezoic Ads app in your dashboard.
Try to select as many ad sizes as will fit in each Ad Placeholder location. The system will find the best ones for each scenario and sometimes the results will surprise you! Below is how to select the sizes when adding placeholders manually in the app in your dashboard.
We recommend using the Chrome Extension to add placeholders (rather than doing this manually within the app) as it's super easy and quick to use. Here's some more info on how to use the chrome extension.
Below is how to select sizes within the Ad Tester Chrome Extension and enable these for different devices:
5. Placeholders Above The Fold
Depending upon your layout and what content you have at the top of your pages, be careful with Top of Page and Under Page Title placeholders so that you don't enable sizes such as 'netboard' which could push content below the fold.
Anchor ads are ads that "stick" to the bottom of devices even when the visitor scrolls down the page. They can provide a great user experience and can significantly increase your revenue from mobile devices. Enable these by device type by clicking on Ezoic Ads in your dashboard > ad positions > ad types > anchor and toggling the sliding controller on.
You can enable and customize where anchor ads are shown under the "Sitewide" settings area.
Native ads and link units can work well on some websites. We recommend creating and placing 1-2 native placeholders on each page. Doing this can increase your revenue by 10 - 25% depending on your site. Native ads can be enabled through Ezoic Ads in your dashboard > ad positions > ad types >Native Ads, and toggling the sliding controller on.
Simply activate the Chrome Extension. Under "Create" click the drop-down menu where it says "Automatically Detect" and select "Native" or "Link" then click "Select Location".
Auto-inserted ads are a feature that allows Ezoic to automatically create and test new placeholders on your pages. Using our AI learning technology, the system will allocate locations where placeholders perform well and insert these onto your site.
You can enable this from the Ezoic ads section under ad types.
Odds are that many people are visiting your website on mobile devices. Make sure you have mobile enabled for a good spread of placeholder locations and that mobile sizes are enabled.
Here's how to do this with the chrome extension:
Where the mobile icon is blue, this means this size is enabled for this placeholder on mobile as seen in step 4.
You can review the setup using the Chrome extension by activating the extension and then using the Chrome Developer tool (or f12) to show the mobile version of the site
8. Be Patient
Testing thousands or millions of ad combinations takes time. Don't fret about daily fluctuation. Testing requires long-term commitment and patience, but the benefits are often astronomical. Depending on your site's size, we recommend giving testing at least 3-6 months to see the full benefits.
Try not to delete placeholders after adding them as the system will have already started collecting data about your individual users and generating revenue from different ad combinations. It would be like removing a playing card from a pack - you don't know for who and in what situation this card would have proved valuable.