Who should select advertisements?

[gsmith]

I am developing a site dedicated to analyzing current events, intending to support the site by means of affiliate advertising.

It seems to me that a good idea would be to advertise Amazon books, for each Web page selecting books that would be highly related to the topic of that page. The benefit here of course is highly targeted advertising. On the other hand, going with a service that automatically matches ads to content would eliminate the need to invest time in searching for relevant books.

Would anyone be willing to offer insight as to which option seems preferable?

[ska_demon]

Adsense would offer you targetted paid advertising.
Probably at a better % than amazon. Depends somewhat on your content but is a quick and easy way to earn money if you get a lot of traffic.
Ska

[gsmith]

Ska wrote:

Probably at a better % than amazon

.

I am puzzled by this statement. I thought that while AdSense works on a "pay per click" basis, Amazon only pays commissions on actual sales. On what basis are we comparing revenue generated from these two alternatives?

[ska_demon]

"Probably"
This is based on my own personal experience with amazon and adsense. Like you said Adsense pays per click and amazon pays commission per sale. Amazon pays 6% commission on each sale (not a lot compared to a lot of other merchants.) You may get a far better income from adsense depending on the amount people are bidding for keywords. At least with adsense you get paid every time someone leaves your site unlike amazon where you will only get paid if people order something after leaving your site.
Test both and find out which works best for you.
Ska

[wellzy]

I am curious how well Adsense would do on a current event page. I would think targeted books on the subject would do better. I've never sold books, but I do run Adsense.

wellzy

[ska_demon]

hmmm current affairs. I was thinking along the lines of stock market/financial which is very competetive and expensive to bid on with adwords giving you quite a nice adsense return.
Ska