Hi, I heard a very successful internet guru say recently that it is a bad idea to have adsense on a website because it drives people away from your site and they never come back. He indicated that the best idea is to offer a free book or report and get their email address, then follow up with them with an autoresponder series - which again would promote the sales of an ebook or whatever. As long as more and more people get on your mailing list, then you can offer more and more products to them without any more effort. He also indicated that you'll make 10 times more money doing it this way instead of putting adsense on your site. What is everyone take on this ? Is anyone doing both - adsense on your site and picking up email addresses and selling things - or is that too much ? Thanks.
I disagree. For two reasons: First, there are far more people making a nice amount of money from AdSense then there are from selling things over the net, especially in this spammy way. Second, there are far more people who will click something out of interest (the AdSense way of earning money) then there are people willing to buy stuff over the internet.
I have adsense ads, affiliate links, newsletter subscription etc, so whatever people likes they'll use it, you should some knowledge or experience on promoting own products or affiliate products in other way PPC is easy own to earn money easily... I am making 80% of my earnings from adsense and 20% from my affiliate promotions... But I can say if your product is well worthy and you hardly believe it will convert to sales, then don't use adsense on that page.. it's right people can easily diverted to another site for just pennies, while those can convert your sales.. it really depends upon the product that we are promoting.. I am collecting emails from my visitors and as you said, I will putup some followup message to promote the affiliate products.. so, I can say, its upto your skills earning money online..
From the publisher perspective it's an OK idea. From the advertiser perspective it's a bad idea. The traffic on the content network simply doesn't convert.
it depends. if you are selling products, perhaps it is not wise to put adsense. However, if you are providing free info, free content, free service, a community which you are not selling stuff, putting adsense will not drive them away.
There is nothing wrong with adsense. Some very well known pulishers like The Times, NYT, About.com all use adsense. Ads from adsense complement the ads well, so its a win-win situation for the publisher and the visitor.
Its hard to find sites without adsense these days, so that adsense is scaring away people i doubt. People are used to it. And, if would notice if people didnt come back to my site, the statistics show that I have a good amount of returning visitors, adsense hasnt affected this much, if at all.
I use mainly AdSense, but do have a newsletter subscription which garners a lot of response. Using Analytics as well, I can see that while a lot of people do only visit my sites once, a large portion do return in the future. I think AdSense sites look spammy to people like your 'web guru', but the everyday people who browse the web for information they need just don't care. They regard the AdSense ads as alternative links to information.
"the best idea is to offer a free book or report and get their email address, then follow up with them with an autoresponder series - which again would promote the sales of an ebook or whatever." And I'm guessing he then had something to sell you to tell you exactly how to do this. "Adsense a Bad Idea" is relative to the site and situation.
I think that as long as you don't overdo the adsense ads, it's a fine way to make some money. A very simple way to monetise your site. The whole list building thing by giving something away free is I believe outdated. building a list from people who buy from you is way better.
He is correct, Adsense sucks. So everyone should stop doing it now so I'll be the only one and then I shall clean up. MUWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.
In my experience this is wrong. One of my sites offers a free newletter, and I get about 30 - 50 people per month requesting it. I can see from my Analytics that the majority of people requesting it actually do come back to the site, from links in the newsletter too. While it may not be as popular a method anymore, it does still work.
Your marketing guru is right. Most people don't make money from AdSense and those who make money from AdSense barely earn anything. AdSense Check
I'd question any internet "guru" who feels they can confidently make such a blanket statement about all web users.