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Unfortunatelly is not available all over the world.
Is anybody making acceptable money (IE: 50% of adsense income or even 30% or 20%?) in other alternatives?
I've tried Amazon and Chitika and really get near zero there. Chitika was around 2% of Adsense and Amazon 0%.
Jamie
Amazon is not a good alternative to AdSense, though, because it takes work. You can't just put up a banner. You have to write a review or otherwise support a sale.
I found Yahoo had terrible targeting. I think it's because they don't have large enough an inventory of ads.
Why would they?
In my testing I've had better luck with Adsense over affiliate sales on a niche market site. 2-1 more sales. I haven't worked on the site for more than a year and it just continues to grind along on it's own.
Hello eljefe3 long time.
I'm about 50% adsense, 40% direct sales, and 20% aff. No wait... oh well, close enough. Surprisingly, there's been no bleed-over from adwords advertisers or aff merchants converting themselves to direct sales, so, yes, you're going to have slap an "Advertise Here" link in the footer and come up with an ad delivery system and pricing plan. Prepare yourself for some hand-holding, as many of your clients will be totally braindead when it comes online marketing.
Good distinction to make. PPC advertising is a more immediate return versus affliate sales.
This is the moment for them to speak.Why would they?
Well, perhaps because this is a forum and some of us might want to learn something from the big players? Or have I missed something?
AdSense is the easiest and usually the best (niche dependent) of the first type. However, my longterm goal has always been to constantly decrease its percentage - by raising alternative revenue streams percentage not by decreasing AdSense amounts. Why? Because Google is taking a big slice for the convenience.
To sell ads directly in a big way requires highly targeted high traffic volume, solid appropriate traffic and demographic analysis over time, and getting your foot in the door at likely niche companies and ad agencies. My direct ad sales have gone from minimal to a major and still increasing portion of the bottom line.
I know many of you go to webdev conferences and ask many an AdWords and AdSense question. How many of you go to the industry conventions your niche site targets and get known to those companies ad/marketing folks? How many of you go to ad agency conventions and get to know the players in your niche markets? Why not?
AdSense (and similar) are the default ad revenue streams while building a site and for filling in holes later on. The real ad money is your own program sold directly. Well worth working towards.
And the same is true of affiliate revenue. Third party is simple, direct is much more profitable.
Well, perhaps because this is a forum and some of us might want to learn something from the big players? Or have I missed something?
In affiliate marketing, everyone is a potential competitor. Those who make a lot of money doing it have done the work, the research, tried and failed, tried and succeeded, and know they can make more money by being better at it than the next guy. They're not going to give up hard-earned knowledge beyond answering general questions and technical knowledge.
Me, I'm 95% affiliate income and 5% AdSense and other advertising and doing well with it.
In affiliate marketing, everyone is a potential competitor. Those who make a lot of money doing it have done the work, the research, tried and failed, tried and succeeded, and know they can make more money by being better at it than the next guy. They're not going to give up hard-earned knowledge beyond answering general questions and technical knowledge.
I presume most forum members already know that.
But the question was not for the big players to spill their secrets, the question was if anybody is making acceptable money Outside of Adsense.
Perhaps some of the big players are prepared to give an insight in their earnings. Are they making 100K, 500K or perhaps 1000K a year? And without going into specifics, are they achieving this with their own private advertising deals or perhaps with the big networks like CJ?
[edited by: MFKaHB at 7:06 pm (utc) on May 9, 2008]
the question was if anybody is making acceptable money Outside of Adsense.
Perhaps some of the big players are prepared to give an insight in their earnings. Are they making 100K, 500K or perhaps 1000K a year?
OK I'll bite - although nowhere near being a "big player" (I wish...) I've been able to do roughly $75K net of all hosting/domain/PPC expenses annually. The vast majority (approx 70%) is all from one particular INDEPENDENT (ie not through any affiliate network like CJ) affiliate program. So if they ever go belly up, it's going to take some serious scrambling to find some other good programs to fill that gap. Not exactly rolling in obscene amounts of dough with a lot of security, but it sure beats the heck out of the office grind any day by far :)
If you have a site and just want to "throw up ads" to "compliment" your content then adsense would be best. Guys like me first decide what sells and THEN get sites and copy built specifically to sell (or generate leads) for specific offerings. So for me, adsense is a total joke - 1/20th the earnings of affiliate programs.
The trick, IMHO, is to find something that no one else is trying.
While I have no doubt that works at times, my strategy is to promote things I already know work and find ways to beat the competition. In really great niches, you don't even need to beat the competition. A small piece of the pie can be 4 figures daily.
