Robyn writes a thought provoking post with the title of Why Use Affiliate Ads Rather Than AdSense or YPN?
In it she points out the benefits of going with affiliate programs that pay larger amounts when people purchase a product in comparison to CPC (cost per click) ad programs like AdSense which generally pay a smaller amount for a click on the ad.
She writes:
“One advertiser recently sent me an email reminding me of their current affiliate promotion. It was roughly (details changed to protect my hide):
1. 10 Subscriptions – Get $50 Home Depot or Best Buy Gift Card
2. 50 Subscriptions – 2G iPod Nano
3. 150 Subscriptions – XBox 360
4. 275 – Home Theater System ($1000 value)
5. 500 – Tickets to the Affiliate Summit, $500 airfare and 3 days lodging
6. 1000 – Serious renumerationNow, this was for a service that costs between $10 and $20 dollars, depending on plan, and it’s a really popular service at that. And, remember, this is, in addition to the $15 lead spiff. So, in essence, for option #6 you would make around $5K for the above bonus and $15K for the lead spiff.”
It’s an interesting topic and one that I’ve seen fans of both CPC and Affiliate programs argue over many times.
While the above argument is logical and seems to make sense I would argue that while 1000 subscribers to a service seems like an easy enough thing – I’ve never managed to get that type of hit rate in my three years of blogging (despite using affiliate programs on many of my blogs).
My own opinion on there is no clear winner in the CPC/Affiliate program debate on a big picture level and it’s a question that needs to be asked on a topic by topic basis.
Some blogs are naturally suited to CPC whereas others do much better with affiliate programs. This depends on many factors including the topic (ie my gadget blogs tend to do better with CPC and blogs like ProBlogger do better with affiliate programs), the voice/style of the blogger, the type of readers (ie loyal readers seem to respond better to affiliate programs where as search traffic does better with CPC) and other factors.
Where do you focus most of you online money making attention? CPC ads, Affiliate programs or a combination of both?
