Should You Use Adsense With Affiliate Ads?

Posted by Unknown on Monday, June 3, 2013 0

Next to “How do I get started making money online“, most beginners ask “Should I put adsense ads on same page as Affiliate ads?” It seems that a common misconception of beginners is that the more ads you have on a page, the more money you will make. I guess I can see that logic, but I’m about to tell you why that is a bad idea! Follow along as I explain why you need to pick just one monetization method. I’ve come to this conclusion after many years in the affiliate marketing business and by doing many test to see which made me the most money.

USING ADSENSE ADS ON AN AFFILIATE MARKETING

WEBSITE IS A BAD IDEA, HERE’S WHY!

Okey, like I said above, I can understand how you might think that having as many ads as possible on a page is a good idea. Heck, the Internet is full of websites with more ads on a single page than content. But generally those websites do not make any money.

Reason  1 Why You Shouldn’t Mix adsense ads with affiliate ads. As many website owners are finding out, having too many ads (in the eyes of Google) post Panda is a bad idea. As of late, Google has been penalizing websites with a lot of ads above the fold. This goes for Adsense ads as well as Affiliate ads. If for no other reason than this, you should limit the ads you have above the fold. I generally only put one, but have been known to put two if the width of the web page allows it. I like a lot of white space around my ads. My tests have proved that I make money with Adsense in a greater amount when I isolate the Adsense block.

Reason  2 Why It’s Not A Good Idea To Put Adsense Ads on an Affiliate site. 
Time and time again studies have shown that web users get ad blindness very quickly. Bombing your customer with a plethora of ads just makes them ignore all of them. Not only that, but it makes your site look spammy. By limiting the amount of ads you have on a page, you are making the customer focus on one ad. Whether that ad is an Adsense ad or an affiliate ad. Plus, even with those that aren’t ad blind, too many ads confuses most people and they end up hitting the back button.

Reason  3 Why You Should Never Put Adsense Ads On The Same Website As Affiliate Ads.
Because you lose money. That should be the biggest reason of all not to mix the two monetization methods. Even if you’re lucky enough to have found a niche paying $1 to $5 per click, most generally Adsense pays less than Affiliate offers. You may get that sweet $5 Adsense click every once in a while, but are you missing out on a $50 commission by sending your customer off to another website? That has been my experience when I tested the same sites over a period of time. In nearly all cases, my affiliate income fell dramatically whenever I added Adsense. What’s more, the additional Adsense income did not make up the difference! Reason enough to pick one monetization method and stick with it. Actually you should be doing your own testing to see which pays more, Adsense or affiliate income.

The Golden Rule of Affiliate Marketing is make it easy for your Customer to buy from you. If you have pages with more than 40% ads, you’re confusing your customers. Don’t further complicate the situation and lose money in the process by sticking some Adsense ads up hoping that you’ll get the people who didn’t jump on your Affiliate link to click on your Adsense link. It doesn’t work that way