Today I’m going to give you a secret to getting an avalanche of traffic on the Content Network, using Google’s Image Ads. I’ll begin 
by explaining something that’s totally core, thoroughly fundamental to hyper-effective, profitable advertising.
Every form of media and every way of selling any kind of space has its own fundamental financial metric.
Commercial real estate is leased according to dollars per square foot per year. Therefore the core metric of a retail store is sales per square foot.
The core metric of the Internet is dollars per thousand impressions.
Every Google search is an impression and that impression is what Google has to sell, period.
So even though AdWords charges you per click, it rewards you for Click Thru Rate. So if you do the math, at the end of the day you’re paying for impressions. The #1 bidder is the guy who gives Google the most $ per 1000 impressions. The #2 bidder is the second most profitable advertiser per thousand impressions.
The same is true on the Content Network. The ads that get the best coverage are the ones that get the most clicks and generate the most money per thousand impressions.
Well if you break it down one step further, each ad or ad block takes up a certain amount of space so it really comes down to:
PENNIES PER PIXEL.
Many AdSense syndicators allow Google to serve both text ads and image ads on their sites. The way Google decides which to serve is: Which makes more money per pixel – 3 text ads or one image ad?
If your 250×300 banner ad can $out-perform three text ads, your banner gets shown instead of three other advertisers’ text ads.
OK, so here’s the punchline:
***PIXEL FOR PIXEL, AN IMAGE AD CAN ALWAYS OUTPERFORM A TEXT AD.***
Why?
Simply because you can test more things.
Text ads only have text and they’re black and white. Each pixel in an image ad has 65,536 possible colors. Banner ads have color, texture, faces, patterns, animation… flavor.
My friend, that’s the Pixel Power Principle.
This is why Image Ads can get MUCH higher CTR’s than text ads – 2 to 5 times better. Again, they must, to even get served. But there is literally an endless variety of things you can test. It’s a new frontier in Google AdWords. I’ve really been enjoying the art of playing with these image ads.
Listen up: You test 30-50 banner ads with a Content-Friendly topic, and you are going to come up with one or two ads that SLAY DRAGONS and enter the fabled “Jet Stream.”
Oh, and by the way I discovered a really talented graphic designer who makes beautiful image ads for me. Her name is Laura Husmann, “The Banner Ad Queen.” Her website is www.BannerAdQueen.com.
Enjoy the science and the ART of testing cool banner ads on the Content Network.
Banner ads are soooo 2010!
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
29 Comments on “Google Image Ads and the Pixel Power Principle”
Now google has said about the leaderboard format of the Google images ads
Solitude, your link goes to a page that goes to a forced pop up. Here’s the Google link for information on leaderboard ads: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-look-for-adsense-for-content-ad.html
Hello, I know I am being a pest, I am very sorry, I promise this will be my last question. I was just wondering, how many articles (1 article on each page) should a wordpress website have on it so that google consider it a “fat” site full of content, and not a “thin” affiliate site that they will give the google slap to? Thank you VERY much for your time, I do appreciate it a lot :-)
Thank you so VERY much for that, I do appreciate it a LOT! :-) Kind Regards, from Christina :-)
Hello, how are you going? :-) Do you mind if I quickly ask you something- you know how google love relevance and how when customers click on a google ad, the page you take them to should have that same keyword quite a few times on that page (the same keywords that the customer searched for in google), well I was just wondering if it is good to put that keyword that they searched for into your URL as well. Or doesn’t that matter as long as you write that keyword quite a few times on the landing page that they land on. Thanks heaps for your time, I do appreciate it a lot :)
yes this sometimes is helpful.
Oh, how I thank you, you are too kind! :-) Thank you so much for that, I really appreciate it :-) Ps- do you prefer to also use wordpress plugins? I will totally understand if you don’t give out that info, as I know that kind of stuff is personal
Hello, how are you going? :-) I just bought your definitive guide to google awords book which I love too much. With google image ads, do you think that the website that customers go to when they click on my image ads should be a static website or a blog kinda website, like a wordpress one. Where you reccomned in your book about http://www.minisitecreator.com, is that the best kind of site to send visitors to? Or do you prefer those older style static kinda websites that are not bloggy at all? Thanks heaps for your time :-)
I prefer WordPress to a static HTML site.
Oh wow, thanks heaps for your help, I really appreciate it :-) I can’t beleive your a real person who answers your readers :-) Well, I mean I know you a real, but most guru people don’t talk to their readers at all,like ever. So thank you from me all the way over here in Australia
PS- would it be too cheeky of me to ask that I love that coloured border image ad above too much. Is there anywhere I can buy that cool border, but if I can’t I will totally understand as I know about copyrights and stuff
feel free to use it
Hello, and thanks heaps for your reply, you are too kind :-) Does that mean that all the rules that I have learnt about how to make a great site filled with content, and a privacy policy and a site map etc and all that stuff, does any affilaite google image ad that I do have to link to a good site like that?
Thanks heaps for your help :-)
yes.
Hello, how are you going? :-) I am an affiliate marketer and I would love to use google image ads to generate traffic. What is the deal with google and affiliates? Are google super fussy about the page the customers get sent to when they click on the image ad-like, does the page they go to have to have lots of content, or can I just get customers to click on my affiliate link in the google image ad, and have it go straight to the website of the vendor who sells the product?
Google cares a lot about content and direct linking to affiliate websites does not work well.
@YourInternetBuddies: any piece of software will have a learning curve associated with it, and Keyword Rockstar is no exception. It is an incredibly powerful program that that will take some time to master, but with perseverance you can see some really amazing results.
Also, be aware that KWR is not just image ad software – it takes care of your whole PPC campaign from start to finish (way too many features to mention here). If you are into automation, then this could be the tool for you.
Hey Perry, this page was recommended by Greg Cesar to me. And I have to really thank him for this! I am about to get serious about AdWords with image ads. Do you think it’s worth investing in Keyword Rockstar?
Daniel
I have not used Keyword Rockstar but Shelley Ellis definitely likes it.
This is almost the same as media buys from larger advertising companies where you have to shell out thousands of dollars just to get started. However this is much more cost efficient for the smaller business owner.
Great post as always.
Trying some image ads now on the content network for the first time. I am using it to drive traffic to a free ebook opt-in page.
(I am giving away a “web designer secrets” ebook as part of an autoreponder course.
Which is of course something I learnt from you.)
Have you any thoughts on Keyword Rockstar that allows you to autogenerate image ads in all 9 sizes? I believe you can use your own templates too.
Have not used it. All for it, if it does what you say it does.
Hi Perry,
I’m the creator of Keyword Rockstar and just wanted to let you know that I appreciate you letting people know about the power of Image Ads on the Content Network. It is one of the main reasons I built Keyword Rockstar.
If you want to ever see it in action let me know or you can ask Shelley Ellis about it, she has a copy and I met her in NY recently (very nice person, her and her husband both.)
Best wishes,
Jon
Perry,
Great timing. I am getting ready to start a content network campaign for a client. I was looking for someone to do banner ads for me. Already dropped Laura note.
Thanks
John
PS. BTW, I don’t post often on your blog, but it is always a must read.
John,
It’s always great to hear from ya. Here’s to Pixel Power.
Thanks for that Perry – now here is an important one – how can we find out which image ads on the content network are currently performing best?
As always I’ve got something very specific in mind that I’m testing but this is the key question still – in much the same way that a fast way to test your AdWords ads is to test them against the same wording as the ad wording used by the top long term bidders.
Mark,
A crude first stab at answering your question is to look at places like http://www.dictionary.com, http://www.weather.com and other high traffic general interest sites that run millions of banner ad impressions.
Perry
Thanks Perry
I’ve been looking at those really carefully since you suggested them.
I can see factors that I was already using – use of brand names and brand logos, full solid color, flash sliding and fading.
I take it there is not an established way to see who is doing what in image ads in the way that AdWords analyser lets you do with text ads.
Sorry that we missed your call-in session last Monday 9th due to urgent domestic stuff – when are you doing the next one?
Mark,
Next call-in will be in the next couple of months, watch your newsletter.
There are some services that are monitoring image ads and I can’t talk about them yet – but I will soon
Perry