What Option is More Profitable: Adsense or Affiliate Programs?
December 3, 2008
If you have read some of my past articles, I have stressed the importance of putting up more than just Adsense on your website. While Adsense pays great, putting some affiliate programs on your page can usually enhance your earnings.
How well affiliates can earn you, really depends on your niche and what you are marketing. I have a few websites on one subject, where the affiliate sales are outpacing adsense by a large margin. You have to pick affiliate programs that will work well for your visitors. It should be something you think your visitor will be highly likely to buy when visiting your site.
Some website demographics do better than others for affiliate sales. For example, I have a blog that talks about making money for blogger and it’s the hardest website I have to get affiliate sales per unit of traffic. I think this is due to the fact that many that come here, are skeptical of anything talked about dealing with money online. I also think its because users who tend to come to my site are more web savvy than the average net user and more likely to have “ad blindness”. I have read from other bloggers who cover similiar topics as as this blog, who also reported smaller earnings compared to their other sites.
Many might think putting up affiliate ads might decrease Adsense earnings and thus your overall profit. It may, but once again that would depend on the website. The only way to know for sure, is if you test it with affiliate ads. If after a few months, your Adsense earnings drop and aren’t made up by extra revenue from the affiliate ads, you may have to change affiliate programs. It could take some trial and error a few times to find a good affiliate program. Even if you lose a little adsense earnings as a result, I would never get rid of affiliate ads. You should always diversify your ad sources beyond just Adsense.
