I’ve been fooling around with Google ad placement for Laptop Gamers and Digital Grabber. The tweaks all have to do with the in-line 336 ads, since that is the best performing ad unit. The only change made was to have the ad align it to the left instead of the right. You can see an example of the new placement here.
The change had a drastic effect on click rate – it double! Mind you the ad is very “in your face” at its current location and I will have to monitor traffic for the next few days to see if it upsets readers. However, with a doubling of click rate, I can afford to lose a bit of traffic and still come out ahead.