YPN versus Adsense: which is better?

Since Adsense took me back, I've been wanting to know: which is better? Yahoo Publisher's Network (YPN) or Google Adsense.

To figure this out for my website, I decided that I would replace YPN's ads with Adsense, and run Adsense for about a month. This would ensure that the ad placement on the site was comparable, and provide Adsense with a reasonable period of time to target their ads to the site.

The results are below. CPM is average revenue per 1,000 ad impressions. CTR is the average click through rate, and Avg Rev/Click is the revenue divided by the number of clicks.

Here are the results:

Rev. per CPM CTR% Avg Rev/Click
YPN $0.87 0.2% $0.53
Adsense $1.75 1.27% $0.138


Although Adsense yielded less revenue per click, this was far offset by Adsense's ability to gain a better click through rate (i/e more clicks), presumably through better ad targeting. Adsense also yielded more revenue per 1,000 impressions.

This site is a file sharing site. Your website might exprience different results. But I was very impressed with Adsense's ability gain such a high CTR.

With YPN requiring publishers to geo-target their ads to only U.S. visitors, I have to conclucde that Adsense is the more convenient, higher-yielding choice at this time.