Lesson 3: Use the 300×250 Mobile Ad Unit Below the Fold (BTF)

This post was most recently updated on September 6th, 2019

Hello and welcome to your weekly FREE Mobile Ad Optimization Course! We’re on to Lesson #3: Using the 300×250 Mobile Ad Unit Below-The-Fold (BTF).

Now, many of you are aware and are most likely be using the 320×100 ad unit ATF, but not a lot of publishers have discovered the effectiveness of placing mobile banners below the fold. In this lesson, we will discuss the advantages of using the 300×250 mobile ad unit BTF, and the optimum setup to try so you earn more from this ad placement. All these and more straight from our in-house ad optimization teams.

Dive in!

The 300×250 mobile-optimized ad unit increases competition

This ad unit is popular globally among advertisers. There is a large ad supply for this type of ad size, and therefore is able to increase competition for your inventory. Because of that, you can expect to get higher eCPMs and more ad revenues.

Read: #AdOpsQ&A: Understanding CPC and CPM Pricing for Publishers

Works great for viewability, too!

Based on Google’s research, the 300×250 ad unit placed just below the fold can help you make the most out of your ad space in terms of viewability. It can impact viewability from 40% up to 60%!

TIP: Check out your Active View reporting in AdSense of Ad Exchange to identify areas where there is low viewability

Tips on using the 300×350 mobile-optimized ad unit

• BTF ads could perform better than ATF ads for certain reasons: design, space/gap between the ad and content, ad size, site layout/setup.

• Users scroll down the page, usually even before the ATF content is fully loaded, to read the main content.

• Focusing on ATF placement alone will not increase revenue. Put user experience in mind as a top priority.

• BTF ads tend to be more visible than ATF ads because of the user’s instinct – the moment they open the page they tend to scroll down and devour the content. As a result, BTF placement normally gets better engagement and ultimately higher CPMs.

• Don’t place it too low on a page though, users don’t usually go that far.

• 300×250 BTF on mobile, due to its size, catches attention. It tends to occupy the entire width of a smartphone and so the message the ad is trying to convey is readable/clear. If you put it ATF, due to users’ scrolling down instinct, it would be left unnoticed.

• Advertisers pay a better price for 300×250 than its smaller counterparts.

Case Study: 300×250 BTF Outperforming the 320×50 ATF

In this data, the 300×250 BTF outperformed the 320×50 in terms of CTR & CPM – despite the latter being always above the fold as it is implemented as anchor/sticky.

Result: 300×250 BTF CPMs increased by 18%

YOUR ACTION ITEMS

1) Identify your most engaging content/page via Google Analytics. Pick the one that users tend to spend more time on. Start your strategy there before experimenting on other pages.

2) Avoid Run-Of-Site setup. Instead, label your ad units accordingly (e.g. 300×250 ATF, 300×250 BTF) so you are able to clearly differentiate the stats. You can request this from MonetizeMore’s support team.

That’s it for today! We hope you learned so much about today’s lesson. We can’t wait to hear your success stories after implementing the 300×250 ad unit below the fold.

What’s up Next?

We will be tackling Lesson 4: Anchor Ads on Mobile. Sounds interesting? Don’t forget to come back next Thursday – or you can get the lesson straight to your mailbox when you sign up to our FREE Mobile Ad Optimization Course.

Register FREE to Ad Exchange to start monetizing your mobile inventory today.

Check out our complete course below:

• Lesson 1: Go Mobile-Responsive
• Lesson 2: Use the 320×100 Ad Unit Above the Fold (ATF)
• Lesson 3: Use the 300×250 Mobile Ad Unit (BTF)

Kean Graham

Kean Graham is the CEO and founder of MonetizeMore & a pioneer in the Adtech Industry. He is the resident expert in Ad Optimization, covering areas like Adsense Optimization,GAM Management, and third-party ad network partnerships. Kean believes in the supremacy of direct publisher deals and holistic optimization as keys to effective and consistent ad revenue increases.