Forum Moderators: skibum
1) You have a topic that lends itself to affiliate sales.
2) Good affiliate programs are available for that topic.
On my site, I do well with both AdSense and affiliate sales, because my travel-related topic attracts both ads and bookings. If I had a site devoted to hitchiking, on the other hand, I'd probably do poorly with affiliate sales because hitchhikers don't spend much money and there are no affiliate programs geared to that audience. I'd probably do better with AdSense just because a click payment in the hand is worth more than a commission payment in the bush. :-)
While I have no research to support this claim, I have a powerful gut feeling that this might be pretty common. And if it isn't for you, you haven'T found that great merchant yet, or haven't spend enough time weedign out thebad CJ links and finding the good.
Also, it gives ma a warm fuzzy feelign to think that if I can seel over 2/3rds of my income via affiliates, the leads I send via AdSense must be pretty profitable too.
One of thses days, when I have more security through variety, I'll replace all Adsense for a few days with content targeted, rotated, CJ links. At current CTR and conversion rates, I thould make the same if not more.
On the other hand, AdSense might simply make those visitors profitable that I could not otherwise serve, and therefore could not be replaced with affiliate links. I'll jsut have to test sometime.
SN