Adsense or other Advertising on a Ecommerce site?

[Caran]

I applied to add Adsense to my new eCommmerce site and when I told my web builder I got the feeling he was horrified! He referred to them as "ghastly" and can't believe I'm considering doing this.

So my question is not so much a business one as more of a snob one.

Are they considered a little "low rent"?

I'd appreciate all opinions on this.
Caran.

[lorax]

Greetings Caran and welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Rather than risking this strays off into the general subject of Adsense, let's please keep this thread focused on the topic of Adsense on an Ecommerce site. Thanks!

[jweighell]

I did run adsense on my ecommerce site for a while, although I worked it by showing the ads at the bottom of my category page after the customer would have seen everything I had for sale...

I did take it off after a while as I didn't make a lot of money from it and I was worried it was taking customers away from my site.

The good thing with adsense is that it takes virtually no effort to put it up and try it. If it works, then fine, and if it doesn't you can take it off - and you've only wasted a few minutes of your time!

[Andy Lativio]

Personally I dont like them, I think you would make much more money by simply linking to related affiliate accounts you have setup yourself.

[Rightz]

I think the general feeling is if you put adsense on a site that is selling something you will usually end up losing your customers to adsense. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to lose a $? deal when you will only get a few cents in return (with the person clicking off your site)

From a snobish point of view I think the average user wont think any less of your site because it has adsense... simply because it is so common place now. However it does all depend whether it suits the design of your site etc.

IMO

[andrea99]

I operate a directory of ecommerce sites in a high ticket niche, though I do list low end sites with integrity too.

Yes, I consider AdSense "low rent." The implication is that you're not doing well with what you're selling. But only if you sell something as the main focus of the site! My site derives all its income from AdSense and I love it. :)

[Caran]

Firstly thanks for the welcome and your responses.

Ok, so we have what we feel is a good quality website selling a good quality product in a field that could be considered high end with a fair amount of it's own geeks.

For the record neither my business partner or myself are snobs in any way, and we both feel that anyone making good money both legally and (preferrably) ethically is to be applauded.

However we have spent sooooo long making everything we can about our site as perfect as possible we don't want to mess up now. To a certain extent I agree with Rightz in that ordinary users probably won't notice the ads, but am worried that our site will attract a lot of (extra) ordianry users.

Where we are located, Internet and Broadband for the masses has only really started to take off and many regular online shoppings are very Internet savvy.

That others may click off our site to others is another real concern.

As you can see I'm still undecided.

[minnapple]

If you can automate it, run Adsense on product pages that you no longer have in stock.

Trifecta!

Good for the searcher, for you, and the vendor that has the product in inventory.

[hint] my adwords spending is not over my adsense revenue.

[Caran]

Many thanks minnapple, I fully take the hint.

I'm assuming it's always possible to automate - fancy hinting further? Caran.

[Green_Grass]

For me it is simple:

If some one like my product , he stays on my site and checks it out. He registers on my site and gives me a lead to follow.

If he does not like or need what I offer, the surfer clicks out using adsense.

I am strong in my niche, so I welcome surfers who want my product. I donot need to hardsell it.

Those who don't want it, always have the ads to find what they want.

Works for me :-)

[haggul]

I wouldn't have it for most of the negative reasons listed so far.

Plus if you ever want to run affiliate scheme for your own site potential affiliates definitely won't like that sort of thing.

[Caran]

This seems like a very sensible approach.

[Caran]

Sorry last message was meant to concur with Green Grass. I think a combination of the two answers from him and minnapple should sort me out.

Although I'm always interersted in others opinions.

Many thanks, Caran.

[Rightz]

If you are thinking about this for your wine site I probably wouldn't put adsense on there. I think it may make it look a bit cheap. But thats only one opinion. I think the site looks professional as it is and I probably wouldnt want to risk changing that.

[BananaFish]

From my experience, companies that do carry outside ads do it for one of two reasons. 1) They're unsuccessful at selling their own products. 2) They want to monetize every last drop of traffic they get on their site. Either way it's never made much sense to me why you would want to focus on anything besides selling your product(s).

[Green_Grass]

It is not easy to generate High quality traffic for a website. It makes sense to monetise every bit possible.

Surfers come to a website with multiple requirements. It is difficult to satisfy all. Adsense provides some variety on the website.

I sell a product which is much in demand but I insist surfers show serious intention by registering on my website before I give them access to my database. 1 in 5 do , out of the balance, 2 out of 4 click out (on the average) using adsense . This helps me pay for my advertising ( to promote my website) and site maintainance.

[haggul]

With the greatest of respect Green Grass maybe if you let them at it without registering first more of them would buy? I wouldn't expect to be frisked at the entrance to my local Tescos every time I want to pop in.

[Green_Grass]

I was just explaining how adsense works on my site.
It may not work for everyone that way.

I guess , I better go free on my site :-) That will make everyone happy and I can then relax with my adsense money.

By the way , here in our country , they frisk us everytime we go to the mall... The terrorists are now such a problem.....

[Caran]

So everyone's agreed then....

More food for thought.

[sniffer]

I ran adsense on all the product pages for about 1 year. Made about $20 per day, but it was confusing a LOT of our customers - many thought that the links were still part of our website. Some even called up to order things from the next site! So I pulled it.

Whilst I understand the business model, I dont believe that a site that is really serious about representing a commercial company should have advertising on it

[Green_Grass]

"Whilst I understand the business model, I dont believe that a site that is really serious about representing a commercial company should have advertising on it "

You got it.. A branded product company should of course avoid adsense , as it will most probably dilute existing brand equity and drive sales to a competitor.

What if , you have a unique product with very little competition on the web? Then you can give surfers a choice.

It is a question of having a strong niche product while the ads are more generic, though targetted at the bigger picture.

Say the site offers Wine from specific vineyards in France ( niche)....but some surfers cannot afford the expensive wine and look for cheaper alternatives so they click on other wine co. ads. This way expensive quality traffic ( people looking for wine) either convert at the site by going in for the 'special wines' or go to someone else for cheaper stuff. By the way ' Wine ads' pay good! :-)

[Caran]

I spent much of last night reading other threads on the topic of Adsense but especially that started by ronburk in October 2003 (maybe I should have done this earlier). I didn't realise Adsense was considered by many as a way to make a lot of money fast (how green am I) and opinions on the subject are obviously divided.

That said I feel if we were to put Adsense on our site we would be doing so for what seems to be the right reasons;
1. We have already built the site and it was never intended to be with Adsense in mind.
2. It doesn't have loads of pages but the content is genuine and all my own.
3. This is a subject both my business partner and I are very passionate about (without being to high handed I hope) and we do not consider the website finished, we can and have planned relevant professional content from likeminded others. And I always have more to say!
4. We have an off line aspect to our business that we can now direct to our eCommerce site - although with Adsense we risk sending these customers elsewhere we have exclusivity on our products and few other companies have similar in our geographical location.
5. Due to legal constraints we can't sell outside our location and it would be complicated for those from other countries to sell where we are.

I'm finding it difficult to ignore the comment "monetarise everything", I feel this makes good business sense, although the thought of ruining our (to our minds) beautiful site fills me with dread, I'm thinking for financial reasons I should detach myself a little.

I'm also not unconcerned about others going on to other sites from the same country to buy from our competitors even though we offer a completely different 'style' of product, but read a lot about filters last night (I was tired and it didn't all totally sink in) and was thinking we could maybe filter these out (?) C.