Digital Marketing through Adsense - Google's 'Above the Fold' Option

It is no doubt that Google is one of the leading pioneers in the digital marketing industry; so when it makes any new feature announcement everybody at the forefront of digital marketing takes it seriously. In the search world, one of the digital marketing techniques on which considerably greater focus is being placed by more and more businesses is display marketing. This involves the utilisation of advertisements (usually as banners) to generate traffic from third party websites for which Google's display marketing network is the largest system in the world.

Recently Google announced a new 'Above the Fold' feature that it has added to its display network advertising option. What this means is that advertisers who utilise Google's display network advertising tool can now choose whether they want all their display ads to appear above the cover fold on the websites on which they appear only. To serious display marketer's this new tool immediately appears significant as it is well known throughout the world of digital marketing that what appears in the cover fold of a page generally generates greater activity than features lower down which are more likely to be missed.

At first glance it may appear that the new 'Above the Fold' option is the way to proceed to increase conversion rates and traffic. However is the matter so simple? Well in our opinion there is more to it to consider. Firstly if the option is selected then ads will only appear on websites which allow for them to appear in the cover fold. Naturally this can have a negative effect too as there may be sites in ones network which are performing well which are automatically disqualified from the network due to the ad not appearing on the cover fold. Alongside this depending on the content of the site, the important information could be below the fold where opportunities might be better achieved.

So should one opt for this new option? Well like with all digital marketing strategic considerations the best solution is to base decisions on metric data. Hence in our opinion the best option is to test the tool and compare the performance as the same result for every campaign is unlikely.

Qudos Digital is a leading digital marketing consultancy and can be contacted on 020 8891 2077 or info@qudosdigital.co.uk

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