AdSense™ and Affiliate Programs

For most publishers, choosing between AdSense™ and affiliate programs is difficult. This is because there is no sure recipe for success, choosing one over the other will not be a sure key for success. Practice has proven that some sites perform better on one or the other program, depending a lot on their topic (availability of targeted affiliate programs) and ability to promote the programs. There are advantages and disadvantages on both sides. In what follows we thought of comparing features of both systems around the main topics of interest.

We have seen how Google™ AdSense works, let us briefly introduce Affiliate programs to you.

Basically, the principle is the same as for AdSense™ — publishers make money from advertising merchants' products. The difference is that most affiliate programs pay according to a particular agreement while AdSense™ payment complex system combines a multitude of factors, most of the times on a Cost Per Sale basis.

Signing Up

	Affiliate Programs	Adsense
Who can apply	Any website can participate in affiliate programs, there are all sorts of affiliates, from large sites to small personal pages.	Is theoretically opened to any kind of sites, of all sizes.
Site content requirements	All types of websites, though most affiliate network service agreements prohibit offensive content. It's better if your site has high traffic, for traffic translates directly into profit, attracting advertisers. Pay per click programs are a good solution to increase traffic. Also, your content must be built to sell.	Any type of content is allowed, except, of course ones with content that offends Google's program policies. However, practice shows that content-rich sites are preffered.

Bottom Line

Admission requirements to participate in affiliate programs may be more permissive in as far as the content-quality is concerned. But not in all cases.

Whith AdSense™ there's little you can do to entice the visitor to action, it does not allow any incentives to click. Affiliates are allowed to use any means to obtain the desired results. Though it sounds easier to obtain profit from affiliate programs, it isn't, for you have to obtain clear results. Depending on the payment agreement, you may have to sell to gain some money, which is always tougher.

One of the advantages that Google™ AdSense offers is that it will generate revenue even from pages that don't work well with affiliate programs, that is, if one page moves slightly away from the main topic and will not be best suited to your affiliate ads, AdSense™ will show customized ads. Also, AdSense™ will generate revenue from a greater variety of sites (informational sites, editorial sites, for example), with topics on which there are no affiliate programs available.

Google™ AdSense is more advantageous also for sites attracting international visitors. It performs geographical targeting (it displays acustomized ads according to the visitor's location, unlike affiliate links, which are static).

Payment System

Affiliate Programs

Adsense

There is a variety of payment arrangements. The basic types are: Pay Per Click You receive money every time a visitor clicks on the ad. Pay Per Sale You receive money every time a visitor makes a purchase. Pay Per Lead You receive money a visitor you signs up for something free or fills out some information. No need for purchase. Variations of these are: Two-Tier programs You receive money from the arrangement you have — one of the above — and additionally based on the activity that other affiliate sites you refer to the merchant site. Residual programs You keep making money off a visitor you have sent to a site if the visitor will continue to purchase goods/services from the merchant site.

Combines all the basic forms of payment of the affiliates, and has recently introduced also the Cost Per Impression system (pay based only on the number of visitors who see an ad).

Bottom Line

Affiliate programs can generate good money, but involve more risk. The majority will pay mostly on a PPS basis. This requires more marketing talent and will monetize on condition your site is built in such a manner as to drive visitors to real action (purchase in this case). An advantage is that they are more predictable in terms of generating revenue.

AdSense™'s complex payment system offers less money producing conditions — gains can fluctuate very much — but is less risky, the system will bring you some money in any case.

The publisher's share is never revealed, a great disadvantage, while with affiliate programs you have this information before you sign up.

Administration

	Affiliate Programs	Adsense
Complexity	Site activity tracking Finding the right ads that best fit your content Checking constantly the terms of the companies, or whether they still are in the affiliate network Checking on the products for sale: to be popular, decent and uncompetitive ideally Checking constantly the number of people who click/who buy/who perform some other action Keeping track of the arrangement between the merchant and the affiliate, ensuring thus the correctness of payment. Many webmasters do not rely on the merchant site to keep their account correctly	Site activity tracking Checking periodically the ads fed by Google (as they change from time to time) and deciding on whether they should stay or be filtered)
Required time	Besides the above-mentioned, time-consuming requirements there are also technicalities that require more time for the affiliate activity: the search for affiliate programs webmasters would be interested in putting many different codes from different affiliates on your site can be a tedious task may require more time until becoming operative	It is less time-consuming: simple to join, just one code to put into your pages it becomes operative at once

Bottom Line

With affiliate programs you are more in control over the adds that appear on your site. You can target them the way you think is better.

AdSense™ does not require too much time. Not NECESSARILY. But if you want to get the best out of it you'll still need to grant it a lot of time to optimize your site. In order to get more money, you need to get higher levels of targeted traffic,improve content to pre-sell, increase CTR, monetize the right keywords.

Conclusion

Our suggested solution to this “puzzle” is testing and combining the two variants.

Arguments:

• Affiliate programs can complement very well AdSense™: you can use them in situations AdSense™ is not allowed (Thank you/Registration pages). AdSense™ can bring revenue from pages/sites with topics that are not fit to earn income from affiliate programs (content sites).
• Having multiple sources of income cannot hurt. Besides, the payment cycles differ, AdSense™ pays 30 days after the end of the month the visitor performed the action. With affiliates, payment might take longer.

To conclude, both types of programs require selling, one way or the other, for it is advertising, after all. Thus, content sites will generate less revenue in both cases while sites designed around very specific commercial topics (as for example various appliances or equipments) will be more money productive. The art of the webmaster is to have the ability to combine the two by testing variants that work best in different situations.