Is adsense worth it?

OK...so you spend hours/days/months thinking of a website,
weeks or months learning dreamweaver or frontpage..or how to code by hand.
Designing logo's ...in paintshop pro...or some other graphics editor.
Days writing unique content for each page, more time figuring out how to
actually host your site, and once its up..you get hit by the sandbox...for up to 6 months.
so ....you spend the next 6 months
learning about meta tags, page titles, PR etc... submitting to every single
place on the internet that you can get a link
then your hardwork pays off and you start getting your first visitors

click .......they've GONE !

you make 3cents



I am still trying to get my head round this adsense phenomenon,
each time i look at my stats (and i make ok money from adsense because i get a lot of visitors)
however now i am starting to consider them 'customers lost'
and the space might be better taken with a couple of affiliate programs that convert well, that you think the customer may actually benefit from,or be glad to have found.,
and low and behold...after they went to the affiliate site
and ordered something.....they are still on your site!!....because it opened the link in a new window.
You have made more money...and the customer hasn't even left your site.

do you have frustrations with adsense?.... if it was $1 per click..it wouldn't be so bad, but 3 cents is a pretty lowly amount for losing a customer, and the work that goes in to getting them in the first place.

 

Hi what colour have you got your ads

 

Yeah thats true. Lately i have been receiving so many of those 3 cent clicks. I wonder if they were be $1 clicks. Its hard to miss out a customer for 3 cents.

 

Adsense, like anything serves its purpose.

It depends on alot of factors
1. Adsense being contextual means that throw it across your sites and it will do the rest - no search out affiliates, the right products.

2. AS is Pay PER click - affiliates pay per sale/ lead - with a usual 5% converstion I regularly throw 95 out of 100 visitors over to amazon that DONT buy for example. - those 95 would have given me $3 at 3c a click. A visitor that goes to another site (even if the window pops up) is often lost. New browser windows also lower conversion rates.

3. Depending on the industry there are many 50c-$1+ etc. It basically depends on the value/ profit of the product.

4. I see AS as something that should be used until you know exactly what it s you can sell to your customer.

5. Affiliates tend to make you lose repeat business - AS Ads that people click may Not lead to conversion and the person may be back to your site. If someone you send to an affiliate buys something from them then they probably wont be back to you at all.

Personally, AS helps, but doesn't really make lots on the whole, unless you have big traffic on a high paying term.

The real money is in having the product. It has the biggest margins.

 

If the affiliate programs that you participate in can actually convert your traffic into sales... yes - you can make a lot more with the affiliate programs.

HOWEVER.... there is less FRICTION when it comes to generating revenue by getting paid per click rather than per sale.

For example, one of my sites refers leads to a service that would pay me $2200 per sign up. (10% commission off of $22,000 per sale) This particular site generated 10-30 leads per day that completed a lengthy form on my site, and the form information was forwarded to the company I had the commission agreement with.

3 months go by, and I make ZERO. Fed up with not getting paid even though I'm sending leads.... I put adsense on the site. Heck, I was making nothing anyway, so I had nothing to lose. BLAMMO...... with adsense, that site starts generating $50-$100 per day in revenue.

Now I would rather have been making $2200 commissions all day long, but obviously there was a lot more friction to be paid per sale compared to getting paid per click.

Getting paid per sale... sending 300-900 leads per month - generated ZERO commissions for me. But with adsense, the site now generates $1500-$3000 per month.

The lesson I learned is... even if you get offered 50% per SALE, 50% of ZERO is still ZERO. In the case of this particular site, I was offered 10% per sale... and 10% of ZERO equals what?????? That's right. A BIG FAT ZERO.

 

What is the product? There are people here that would probably like those leads from you..

 

I think Adsense is great, even when starting up. I'm still learning everything from CSS to PHP and SEO, but with some sites I have been able to earn some money while learning, its not much but it Definatedly makes you stay focus and interested.

 

topdog >>> so true.

I offer both...affiliates and adsense..
recently i moved adsense to the top...perhaps i will put it back at the bottom
and replace the top with affiliates. Adsense was supposed to 'compliment' the site with relevent 'contextual' ads. Not lose customers for a measly 3cents.

This is not all as bad as it sounds, all is well, just hectic typing ;-)

 

We have a couple affiliate websites, and adsense integration has lead to increase in the total amount of checks we receive, leading to an overall win win situation. I see no loss so far. Yes, I do not show adsense/competitor adsense on sites that I sell my own products/services on. I have seen some little companies having adsense on their main website, and adsense showing widget ads, when the company also sells widgets

 

I have competitor AS ads on my site. If you product/ price is good and they were going to buy anyway they would have. The ads are obvious and I think that the people that click them generally know. I wouldn't advise making the ads too integrated if you are trying to sell products.

 

For me, my affiliate links through CJ convert at about 2%. Adsense converts between 30-40% for that same site.

My average click is worth more than 3 cents so for me, affiliates are a waste of time, and money.

I make more with adsense.

You and I have a different idea on the internet, and when the hard work pays off.

You are trying to get people to your website.

I am trying to get people to click on ad. If I have 1000 unique visitors that convert at 1%, or 100 visitors that convert at 10% there is no difference for me.

I don't care about how many visitors come to my site and waste my bandwidth, I only care about how many click an adsense link.

That is the ENTIRE goal for the majority of my websites being on the internet.

Brandon

 

so many affilates are BS that often adsense seems better

I added more adsense to a couple of affilate sites

I'm not sure but it seems I may Have lost some leads, but I also make an extra $50 -$80 more in adsense. So I'm not really sure. I have to set up more specific channels and measure the visitors better. Although I am not looking forward to stopping the extra $50 a day to find out.

Also you know google is sending the check .....

 

Many affiliate sites boast high conversion ratios (such as 1:40 or better). I'm a sucker for these sites that make these claims - just like I'm a sucker for info-mercials. (Did I mention that I've purchased every type of fishing lure on those crazy info-mercials?? )

I would spend time & effort to create a site that drives targetted traffic to my affiliate page only to find that the conversion ratio was not all it was cracked up to be once the traffic started rolling in. (sigh)

But no worries... I found that getting paid per click resulted in more profit for me. In the affiliate programs - I was sending thousands of visitors per day to a bunch of different affiliate sites. I did my job and provided targeted visitors/leads and was at the mercy of the affiliate site's ability to close the deal in order for me to get paid and see a return for my efforts.

With the click thru programs like adsense, I don't have to rely on the affiliate sites to close the deal in order to see a monetary return on my efforts.

All I have to say is that ADSENSE ROCKS.

If you have a site that only generates only 3cents per click - your point of view is different than mine.. that's for sure.

My sites generate a significant amount each day in click thrus - and a bird in the hand is better than two birds in the bush - for my situation.

Could I make more with affiliate programs? Yes, the potential is there if the affiliate sites convert. Am I willing to let go of the bird I have in my hand in hopes of catching the two birds in the bush? NAH... I'M GOOD.

 

I have been with adsense since Christmas, I just deposited a check in the bank yesterday for $163.00, my brother just deposited his check for over $700.00 (for one month's adsense).

I work on my adsense almost every day, tweaking my keywords, meta tags, submitting to search engines by hand, always something, but I love messing around on the computer as a hobby for fun.

 

Adsense is more than worth it. You just need the right strategy.

 

Yes we are definately different. We are not trying to do that. Although we do want our vistitors to find what they are looking for
(hence the adsense).
Those sites trying to make money purely from adsense...good for them,
thats their perogative.
I think i will look into moving it away form the top again,
so at least the visitor reads the page before potentially clicking away
from the site.

Bluegill catcher.....
$700 a month doesn't interest me, although i know its a lot for some people,
and not to be knocked.

 

Since you have a mortgage site don't your ads pay a lot? You should have no trouble making good money with your adsense.

 

The nice thing about Adsense is that you can make changes and check results and change again. With reports you get from Adsense, your log files or ad tracking software, and reports from any purchased traffic you have you have a great amount of feedback so you can turn $700 per month to $1400 per month with some tweaking, posting, submitting, editting, etc. At some point it must get interesting.

 

Thats right. I made some small adjustments to my ads such as removing the border and my earnings went up 25 percent.

 

actually I want to check what I said before, I think adding the adsense is definitly better, I get like 5-6 less applications on the one site, but make $30 to $100 more day with adsense. So once I factor in bad and incomplete applications, I come out ahead.

yeah what ads sites only pay .03 cents?