AdSense on my retail site?

Amazon's doing it

[Tonearm]

I've never considered linking my retail site to another site because I don't want to lose a customer. However, I just realized Amazon is driving traffic to my site this way via AdSense. I'm getting 1000-1500 visitors/day now. What kind of revenue might I see from AdSense? What's your opinion on driving traffic away from a retail site like this?

- Grant

[Chico_Loco]

I use AdSense on a retail site I own, and it's performing a hell of alot better than AdSense on another site I have which is not retail.

I can't give you figures due to the Terms Of Service.

My philosophy is that things are so easy to find today that if my product is not 100% what the consumer is looking for, then they will find it elsewhere through Google and I'll loose out completely. So why not provide those ads and get some revenue for it too?

My site still converts well, so I am led to assume that the advertisers clicks perform very well since the quality of traffic would be quite high. It seems like a win-win situation.

Of course, for certain items it may not be advisable to run ads, simply from an appearance point of view.

[Tonearm]

Does Google let you open the AdSense link in a new window?

- Grant

[hunderdown]

No, they don't. That's specifically prohibited by the TOS.

And in my opinion, not necessary. Opening a new window is overrated as a way of keeping people "on" your site. Many Internet users *want* to use the back button to go back to a site, and if you disable it by opening a new window, they may go off somewhere else. By the time they notice your window still sitting there, they are no longer interested.

I changed all my affiliate links to NOT open a new window several months ago. Previously they had. Doing so did not have a negative impact...

[edited by: hunderdown at 8:51 pm (utc) on Jan. 6, 2005]

[Rodney]

One thing to consider if you are a merchant with a retail site AND you have an affiliate program where affiliates are promoting your products...

Some of your better affiliates may jump ship if they see that you are using the traffic they are sending you to send visitors elsewhere rather than focusing on your products.

Since affiliates wouldn't get a cut of your adsense earnings, they would effectively be sending you free traffic that you're getting paid for. They call those "leaks". Leaks to outside pages that they don't get paid for.

Just something to consider.

I have a retail site, but there are pages on the site that are non-retail and I kept the ads to just those non-retail pages.

For me, adsense just wouldn't work on my retail pages (there wouldn't be any good ads to match :)

[Tonearm]

Thanks everyone. I'm going to give this a try. The only thing is I've been careful to keep my pages javascript-free. I guess I'll have to make an exception.

- Grant