You've just put your website or forum online, got some great content posted, and got your adsense account ready and accepted. Now has come the time to position your adsense banners on your site itself (and more importantly, decide which one's to use to get maximum) click-thru-rates to earn some good money. Well, the first 3 steps where simple enough I hear you scream with joy. The problem now, is deciding which type of "Adsense Ads" to use?

Do you go with Image ads, Adsense for Search, Text only ads, or even a combination of the two. Decisions, decisions, decisions - enough to drive a sane man or woman crazy! Well, go search Google and you'll find lots of answers, some saying one type is best, while others saying they suck eggs and another type is the best. So what do we believe then - who is right and who's wrong?

The truth of the matter is, there all right (I think I just saw you scratch your head in total disbelief at me saying that). Ha, ha!! But the reason why I say this is because - while one adsense ad type might work well for one person (making them think it will work for everybody else), doesn't actually mean it will for you. An awful lot depends on the style of template you use, as well as it's overall layout. It's really that simple, and is what it all boils down too. So don't even "waste" your valuable time searching Google for this answer! You won't find it!!!

But here is a great way you can find this information out for yourself. Use the "Custom Channel" option that's open for you to use in your Google Adsense account. Create different channels for each adsense ad type you create. For example: If you want to use the "Large Rectangle Text" only ad. Create a custom channel called "LargeRectangleCustom", then add that channel to the Large Rectangle Text Ad you create. Do this same thing with a few other adsense ad types - creating a custom channel for each one until you have all the ad types you want to use on your sites pages in place (remember, you can only display 3 ads on any one page, read the Adsense TOS). So maybe you might want to create 3 custom channels for 3 different adsense ads your going to be using on each page you create on your site. Simple enough eh!

In theory, it is very simple to do! But so many people in there crazy mad rush to get adsense ads posted on there site as quickly as humanly possible. Don't even look at this option they can use, and most people think the channel option is only there to track individual "web-pages" they create. Not realizing it can also be used to track "individual ad types" used as an alternative.

So now let us imagine you've read this article - took note. And now have your very own custom channels set-up to track 3 different ads types used, and you've also got the ads in place displayed on your sites pages (we'll also presume you have 3 different ad units on each page). Your now in a great position to not only see how many click-thru's a day your getting in total from your sites pages, but also you can see which ad channels (ad types) were actually clicked, and which were not. This gives you a clear indication of knowing which ads are working well and should be left alone to continue making money for you, and which ones are not performing at all and should either be changed to another ad type, or maybe moved to another location on your sites pages - to test performance further.

Using channels this way means you can answer the question yourself, regarding which ad types you should use without even having to touch a search engine for the answer (that might never work for you anyway).