adsense vs affiliate programs?

we use adsense- the results we're getting for your traffic aren't incredible, but they pay the bills.

would we be likely to do better with an affiliate program? how many of the clicks will actually likely lead to sales?

the best topical affiliate program I've found would give us an 8% commision rate.

 

Have you looked at Amazon's Associate program? There is a good following for their web-services.

http:/www.amazon.com/associates

ThinkBling provides free PHP scripts.

 

Also consider whether the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. It's a matter of how much advertising you can stand on your website and how you promote the affiliate programs. If it's something you can review and then link to, you may do well with both.

 

adsense is a top affilite program why did i not use it earlier. I have found that there is more of a click through rate then other cpc (pay-per-click) programs.

I have tried many affiliate programs that are offered and google has made the best resaults.

 

the only problem I'm having with adsense is a really pitiful CTR..

hopefully when we redesign the site it'll improve a bit...

 

that's what I figured- since my site is geared at users that would generally be fairly tech-savy (it's a gaming site) compared to the general public, the CTR may be lower since they learned to ignore ads more than most people..

but at the same time, I never thought it'd be as bad as it is. perhaps it's a combination of my user base and the fact that my site looks pretty "busy" so there are a lot more options as far as where to go..

hm, I hope it'll improve, but I guess if it doesn't there isn't a ton I can do

I've heard that there are still PPC advertisers out there that pay around $.20 per 1,000 impressions.. if this is actually true, we'd be doing much, much better with that than with adsense

 

Adsense is definately my best performer. still thats only 1%.

 

For affiliate programs, and ads in general, to get the best performance you must target them correctly.

Targetting them to your site's content is not targetting them correctly.

Case in point, I run a literature site with about 3 million monthly page views. Most of my visitors are students doing research. Targetting ads or affiliate programs to my site's content would get me ads for books for sale. Such ads perform poorly.

Instead what you want to do is target ads to your visitor's motivations. On my site I run essay ads. They recieve a tremendous response. I still run book ads because I have the room on the site and I make a little bit, say $100 a month maybe. But with the essay ads I measure incoming in the thousands, not the hundreds. Why do essay ads do so well and book ads do so poorly? The people coming to my site are looking for homework help, they're not looking to buy books. I am targetting the program to their motivation.

If your ads or affiliate programs can help your visitors reach their goals they will do well.

 

Digitalpoint - what is Wordtracker? I coudln't find it on the link you provided.

 

Disgust - alot of the people here are Adsense mad, so are only going to suggest that you should use it.

I'm pretty realistic and think the CTR is extremely poor compared to the number of hits I get on the site so I use other forms of Pay per click advertising that gives me other options and "doesn't put all my eggs in one basket".

I'd recommend the following (I marked up how much you could make a year):

Amazon Associates (£100)
http://associates.amazon.com/exec/panama/associates/apply/
- Go with dynamic links and keep it relevant to your page content.

Get a PPC Search Box (£1000)
http://affiliates.befree.com/Affiliates/index.jsp
- Recommend Befree. You can sign up for a Ask Jeeves PPC search box, 2 cents a search or something like that. I'd recommend that you put some text in the input box already, so it makes it easier for someone to search on.

Promote your Web Host (£50)
- If you like your web host, why not promote them on your site - chances are they will offer top dollars for new signups. I use Liquid Web (http://www.liquidweb.com/?RID=gdawe) but you could use Dreamhost (http://www.dreamhost.com I think) as you don't have to have a site registered with them to get commission.

Textads (£40)
http://www.textads.biz
- You might be more successful with Textads on your site. Seems to me I get a bit more revenue from them than from Adsense.

OTHER LINKS

Betting - Make commission on Bids placed on the site. (£100)
https://www.willhill.com/iibs/en/updatedetails.asp?type=join&aff=a54091Q

Paypal - Make commission on referals (£10 - £1000)
http://www.paypal.com
- Read on the site that you can make money by referring new signups to the site. Also perhaps you might want to place a "Make a donation" button on your site?

Trade Doubler - For EU Sites (?)
http://www.tradedoubler.com/pan/index.jsp

PPC Search Boxes (?)
http://www.fastclick.com/publish.html
- Haven't tested this, but could be worthwhile?

Ebay - Commission (?)
- My personal preference is to not sign up with ebay. Commission levels have been reduced and not really worth the hastle. Commiission Junction seems too complicated also.

 

till now i had the best results using webmasterlife. i just have to put money in adwords and it will convert (especially climinax).

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adsense and affiliate programms can be used on the site which draw traffic in combination and make good money. I think it all depends on what type of site you have and how much your visitors trust your site. If you have good trusting visitors, then trying affiliate programms in addition to adsense will be good idea.