Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Anyway, I figured I would see if adding some tasteful banner ads to the site could supplement the AdSense income. I joined Commission Junction, LinkShare, and a Canada based prescription drug affiliate program. We added 2 125x125 ads where I had previously had an AdLinks box. I also included 3 160x600 skyscraper ads to approx. 10,000 newsletters I sent out. AdSense continued to run this whole time.
The first day I replaced AdLinks with the banner ads my AdSense CTR dropped from 3.5% to 2.4%. My AdSense revenue dropped $50. My banner ad income - $0. Ok, not good, but I figured that my site users were perhaps just not used to seeing banner ads, and that they would catch on over time.
It has now been 10 days. While my CTR and daily earnings from AdSense have increased because I am in the midst of sending out bi-monthly newsletters, the banner ads have continued to languish. The astonishing total revenue from the banner ads from 10 days - $4.48! This is from one sale through a Commission Junction merchant. LinkShare has recorded 6,000 impressions, 13 click-throughs and produced $0. The Canadian online pharmacy has received 143 click-throughs, but no orders.
I suppose I could be more patient and give these banner ads more of a chance, but my gut feeling is that my site users obviously hate the things, and that the visual clutter and potential long-term reduced CTR for AdSense just make them a liability.
Only one site's experience of course, but I have found it quite enlightening. If my site is representative at all of the comparative value of AdSense / contextual advertising versus the old-school banner ads, I can't imagine that the outlook is very bright for affiliate management firms like CJ, LinkShare etc.. Of course it could just be me?
Banners vs. AdSense contextual ads: If AdSense contextual ads earn more money than banners do, that's mostly because they tend to be targeted better.
On a review of a Widgetco digital camera, for example, an AdSense "Widgetco Camera Discounts" ad is likely to get more clicks (and to convert better) than run-of-network banners for credit cards or dating services will. (And let's face it: Those are the kinds of banners that the big ad networks deliver much of the time.)
That doesn't mean banners are inherently flawed as an advertising medium. (If they were, Google wouldn't be marketing them as site-targeted CPM ads, and new ad networks wouldn't be targeting highly profitable niches with banners and skyscrapers.) Banners can be better for some types of advertising than contextual ads are: e.g., to convey a sales or branding message or (if the banners are designed correctly) to get clicks from a direct-response offer.
Affiliate programs vs. AdSense: It's possible to earn more from affiliate sales than from AdSense (even with a "content site"), and I don't think affiliate programs are likely to go away soon. Indeed, they can complement AdSense ads very nicely. On the other hand, they require more effort by the publisher than AdSense does; just slapping up a generic affiliate banner isn't likely to work very well in most cases. This means that publishers are likely to use affiliate programs more selectively than they were doing a few years ago, when--for most publishers--the choice was between poorly-paying Burst or FastClick ads and poorly-paying Commission Junction or LinkShare affiliate ads.
I think you are right about the need to promote these affiliate programs more effectively than simply throwing up a banner ad, and until the time that I can do that I'm going to remove these banners. An interesting learning experience anyway.
I spend $50 or so on AdWords, Yahoo etc.
