Best Practices For Monetization

June 16th, 2008 by Nick Gonzalez

Periodically I’ll be adding more features to this blog to help build out developer resources on the site. The first step in the process will be a “Best Practices” section, which will highlight some general lessons for developers to keep in mind when monetizing your applications.

The first section of this tutorial is on ad placement, with the main lesson being that advertising doesn’t work if your users can’t see it.

Since apps vary so much by design, the general rule is to make sure that ads are placed in the user’s field of vision. The first principle is to place ads “above the fold”. Above the fold means that the user sees the ad before having to scroll down the page. Eye tracking studies have found ads above the fold more effective than below the fold. Look at the photo to the right for an example of ads being out of the user’s line of sight.

As your ad placement becomes more predictable, they become easier to ignore. Placing ads in the path of your user’s scanning eyes will yeild better performance. On pages with pagination, the ideal spot may be right under the page numbers.

Find the highest converting spot on your site. This is most likely on the home page underneath the navigation bar. Keep this in mind for when SocialMedia comes to you with higher value campaigns that aren’t just about burning through page views, but high conversions for branded campaigns.

Check out the rest. Feel free to drop me some more suggestions.

Tags: developers

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