There is however, one type of image ad that you should welcome on your website: Google’s video ads. These are an excellent addition to Google’s inventory and for sites that get them, they can bring very impressive returns. Instead of receiving the sort of static image that just gets ignored, you’ll receive the opening still of an online video. The video is stored on Google’s servers so your download times won’t be affected, and it only plays when the user clicks the Play button, minimizing distraction to the user. That’s a good thing. If a user’s eyes keep drifting to a moving image when he’s trying to read your content, he’s going to get pretty frustrated and not want to come back.

And it’s fine too if you’re being paid on a CPM basis; you won’t care then how often someone sees the video. But you’re not always paid on a CPM basis; you might also be paid on a CPC basis. Unlike Google’s other ad formats though, you won’t be paid for just one click. Users first have to click the Play button—which won’t pay you a dime—and then click either the screen while it’s playing or the link underneath the screen before you’ll earn money. In fact, you can’t even track the number of times the film is shown. (Although that does mean that you can watch the film yourself without getting rude messages from Google, and it also means that CPC advertisers are less likely to get free branding at the expense of your page space.) That extra step might sound like it’s going to hit your clickthrough rate for that ad unit but I’m not sure that’s true. 

As soon as someone sees a button anywhere, they want to click it. In fact, I’m sure that if you put a big notice next to the Play button saying, “DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON” you can be sure that your clicks would go through the roof. (But don’t try it; it’s unlikely that Google will appreciate it.) People will want to click that Play button, and many of them will want to learn more about the company that created the ad. And even if your CTR does drop for that unit, it’s likely that the click price for video ads will be higher than for other units competing for that space. Video ads are more expensive to create than text or image ads. That’s why they tend to be created by big companies like car giants or Disney. They might even be offering their television ads. If those corporations have gone to the trouble creating an original video ad or formatting a television ad for the Web, there’s a great chance that they’ll go to the trouble of outbidding their nearest rival for exposure.

If you’re getting a video ad, track how long it appears on that page and compare the revenues it brings with the days on which no video ad appeared. You should expect to see a spike in earnings. If you don’t see that spike, you can always opt out. Unlike text or image ads though, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get a video ad. To qualify, you have to be opted in to receive image ads on an ad unit in one of these sizes:

• Medium Rectangle (300x250)
• Large Rectangle (336x280)
• Square (250x250)
• Small Square (200x200)
• Leaderboard (28x90)
• Skyscraper (120x600)
• Wide Skyscraper (160x600)

(It’s worth noting that with video ads, the bigger the format, the better the results). If you’re receiving those kinds of image ads and AdSense has a video ad to match your content, you might receive one. But what if you don’t? You’ll be receiving the sort of image ads that earn a poor clickthrough rate. That would cost you money. There are two things that you can do to minimize any losses from fishing for video ads and not getting them. The first is to stop fishing fast. 

If a week has gone by and your image ad unit hasn’t acquired a Play button, it’s probably not going to. So turn that image ad back into a text ad. The second is to follow the strategy I use at DealofDay.com. I’ve placed two rectangular ads at the top of the page to make them unmissable but one of them is an image ad. Google no longer allows publishers to place related images right next to ad units to draw attention to them but you can put an image ad next to a text ad. If that image ad becomes a video ad, you’re going to earn more money. If it stays an image ad, it’s going to pull eyes into your ad zone. This is about the only time I can think of when an image ad might be better than a text ad.

And when you do get video ads, there are also a couple of things that you can do to make the most of them... Adding video to your Web pages for example, is a breeze. There are millions of clips available for free use on the Web, and there’s nothing to stop you from shooting your own short. If your site regularly receives a video ad from AdSense, placing one or two more videos on those pages would help the ad blend into the site and increase clicks.
You could also encourage advertisers to build their own video ads specifically for your site.You could also add a line or two there about video ads. Video ads are still fairly new on AdSense, but I’m really excited about them. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more of them in the future and they’re going to really prove their worth.