[StarBuG]

2 days ago I made a big change to my website that hopefully will increase my earnings a lot over time.

So far I made extensive use of Adsense channels to track each of my Ads separately.
I also activated "placement targeting" for the best performing ad placements.

However I did not realize the full potential of "placement targeting" until 3days after I talked to my direct advertising marketer.

Q: What is the main goal of an advertiser?
A: To show there ads to their target group which most likely will convert

Q: Is wider or narrower targeting more effective?
A: I think it depends but mostly the more narrow the target group is, the better the Ads perform

Just as info to you:
CPM prices for a very narrow targeting e.g. topics about "cough" or "skin rash" are 40-50$ (campaigns that my direct advertising marketer runs)
Campaigns that are not that narrow e.g. health only get 10-20$ CPM.
Yes, it makes that much of a difference.

So what did I do?

I created a separate channel for each forum category that is interesting to advertisers e.g. health, diseases, nutrition, alternative medicine, etc. for the ad in this welcome message.
Each of these channels was selected for placement targeting and got a description that outlined the topics in which these ads will be shown.

Then I created several large rectangle ads and assigned each one a category channel I created before.

Now each thread in a specific forum shows the Ad with the channel that was created for this specific forum.
(At the bottom you'll find the condition chain I created to show different ad channel in each forum)

Now each advertiser can narrow down the placement targeting on my website to a certain topic which suites his campaign best.
For example an advertiser who is selling homeopathy can now target his Ads to my forum "alternative medicine" and his ads are only shown to people interested in "alternative medicine".
This way conversion and CTR should increase quite a bit and a lot more advertisers should use placement targeting on my website over time and with that increase my earnings.

To understand the naming concept for channels that I use read my post: Google Adsense - The Secret to using Channels

Remember if you create these channels activate placement targeting for each channel and use a informative description!
I used:

Show this channel to advertisers as an ad placement: YES
Ads appear on: other pages > TOPIC of the forum (e.g. alternative medicine)
Ad location: Top Center
Description: Your Ads will only appear on discussion pages with the topic "Topic of your forum". Short Description of my website.

and here is the condition code you can wrap around the above posted mod code:

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

What are your thoughts on this topic?
How do you handle placement targeting?

[VonDoom]

Installed rated and nominated.. Ive been looking for this for a cpl years now.. Thanks you very very much.. This little hack will finally complete my customizations!!!

Not really installed yet but clicked anyways because one way or another im going to make this work on my fluid style..

[gwerzal]

can ya please post a url up vondoom once you have done it so i can see what it looks like on a fluid theme

[VonDoom]

Sure im using it now, just click the doberman-chat link in my sig! Im still putting some thought into how to make it fluid. But i have no complaints. I think for now the 1024px compromise will work out fine for me.

[gwerzal]

Iv not tried it yet but how abouts if you move it and put it so the sidebar goes along side it.

[g00gl3r]

Doesn't seem to be working on savs.co.uk.

Does this line need changing to just show if the visitor is a guest?

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

[StarBuG]

Just remove

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

and the only condition is that only guests see it

[Winter Sonata]

Dear StarBuG

Your forum is well organized, Good luck with it.
i am eager to know how you have 2 languages interface ?

Thank you so much for this modification

[StarBuG]

i use vbenterprisetranslator.com but there are hacks available here for free too

And thank you

[Winter Sonata]

Dear friend, please state this in the first post
Remove

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

It works only when I delete it.....

Thanks , looking for other modifications

[StarBuG]

remove = delete

[bada_bing]

Any way to post this great mod for vb 3.8.x ?

[StarBuG]

I don't run any 3.8 version anymore, sorry

[bada_bing]

Originally Posted by StarBuG

I don't run any 3.8 version anymore, sorry

Awe weak..... (-: