Displaying Random Ads

If you have a high percentage of return visitors you may have noticed your revenue decreasing over time even though your traffic is constant. It is because your return visitors are becoming as blind to your ad placement over time. To counter this problem we can use PHP to display ads from a random company (Adsense, Adbrite, Zango, etc) on a page-by-page basis. The following PHP code does just that -
  1. <?php
  2. $number = rand(1,3);
  3.  
  4. switch ($number){
  5.         case 1:
  6.                 echo ‘Adsense code’;
  7.                 break;
  8.         case 2:
  9.                 echo ‘Adbrite code’;
  10.                 break;
  11.         case 3:
  12.                 echo ‘Zango code’;
  13.                 break;
  14. }
  15. ?>
As you can see in the code above, it generates a random number between 1 and 3 and depending on the number, displays an ad from a certain ad company. When using this technique on your site, your visitors will become less blind to your ads. Another use for this idea is to randomize ad placements or ad formats, again to counter ad blindness.

This technique can also be used to track the CPM of various ad companies at once. If you are displaying ads from three different companies then at the end of the day, week, or month you can check the CPM at each company and if one delivers a significantly higher CPM than the others you may choose to display ads from just that company and not randomize the ads.

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