Thesis Skins by ThesisReady

I spent a few days working on a client site this past week, and after spending a few days working through ways to increase conversions, I figured I would share one of the more interesting techniques I employed – displaying targeted content to visitors based on which site they visited from. There are a number of applications for this, one of which is showing Adsense blocks only to users who visited from a google search. To understand why this helps, you need to understand a little bit about how your visitors are thinking when they access your site.

In most cases, when someone visits your site via a Google search, they are in pursuit of very specific information. If you have what they want, their search ends and they’ll stick around to learn what they need to know. If not, the search continues on to the next site. This happens in one of two ways. 1. They hit the back button and return to the original search query. 2. They click on a link, or ad unit, that takes them to a new page which, they hope, will have the information they need. Users who aren’t in the process of a search act differently, and therefore are probably less likely to click an ad unit.

Therefore, showing ad units to all visitors, regardless of origin reduces your CTR, and over the long run, can devalue each individual ad-click on your site. That’s not a good thing.

To remedy this, we’ll improve upon the standard Thesis/Adsense integration.

function standard_adsense_function(){ if(is_single()) { ?>
<!-- Your Adsense Code Here --!>
<?php } }   

add_action('thesis_hook_after_post', 'standard_adsense_function');

The above code is how most go about integrating Adsense into the space after a post in Thesis. Using a WordPress conditional tag, it checks to see if the page being viewed is a single post, and if it is, the Adsense block is dropped in after a post. Pretty standard stuff, but it makes no distinction between users visiting via a search, or via twitter or some other site where the chance of an ad click is lower.

Let’s do it the right way now.

function better_adsense_function() {
if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) {
$ref = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
if(stristr($ref, 'google')) { ?>
<!-- Your Adsense Code Here --!>
<?php }  } }  

add_action('thesis_hook_after_post', 'better_adsense_function');

The second line of the function is where the magic happens.

if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) {

This checks the http header, which includes the source of the visit. The next line

$ref = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];

saves the referrer string to a php variable, which we can use to run a test on in the next line

if(stristr($ref, 'google')) {

You’ll notice the second part of that check is set to “google.” If any part of the referring url contains that string, the statement is true and will output anything in that block.

Bam – easy way to improve your Adsense CTR.

Next time – displaying different blocks to different referrers. Perfect for fine tuning your calls to action.

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