Is Adsense still the way to go?

[gerryonline]

I have heard a lot of people make money from adsense, but these days people are saying that its a flooded market, what is the best way to make money online with advertising or affiliate links these days?

Adsense, adbrite, yahoo, amazon?

would be good to hear what others are doing.

[Kerosene]

Unless you've got a ton of traffic (like 5K+ uniques per day), then most PPC programs won't bring in more than a few dollars per day. AdSense is still the best one to go with, but their TOS limits you to using very conservative content. If you can get highly targeted traffic, then affiliate links can bring in way more $ than PPC.

[Brendan]

Agree with Kerosene.. Adsense is great for high volume websites as 'part' of your overall monetization strategy.. it shouldn't be your 'only' way of making money on your site.

If the TOS of the advertiser allows you can run a number of different campaigns on your site, such as PPC advertising, Afilliate links, or direct product or direct advertising selling. That way you have a few more streams of income to your site.

But.. there is no point monetizing your website if you don't have any traffic! Rather than spending time working out how to make money from your site, spend more time trying to get visitors to your site, with good quality content.

Once you have a consistent flow of traffic then start to monetize your site, whilst still providing good quality content!

[wiiman]

I agree. Probably the best thing to do is affiliate links, banner ads and of course good old link ads.

[Slade]

I have had adsense running on one of my sites for about 6 months now, and have a wopping $23 in my google account.. at this rate, I should be able to retire at about 359 years old.

So.. although it does make you money, it's nothing to write home about.

[rosshill]

Where do you find relevant affiliates? I've had a look around a little and just found lots of small sites with pretty poor quality stuff. Am I looking in the wrong spot?

[justinsigns]

I disagree with the use of paid advertising on search engines.

I carried out a 6 month campaign with Adsense and got two enquiries out of it which did not even cover the cost of the exercise.

For the cost of this campaign, I managed to have the website recoded for SEO and all that tech stuff. Since doing this our unique visitors are up around 300 per month and this does translate into sales.


The only advertising we do is sensis online, otherwise we rely on keyword searches or word of mouth.


Again this is my own experience and may not be the best for everyone else.

[andreeve]

I go with affiliates.. see it has a potential huge market to grab through clickbank,CJ,Azoogle etc. Adsense is basically a kids play. All pros go for affiliate marketing.

[J_D]

In my experience, the most effective way of marketing your site or product online would be through ninemsn’s performance media... kind of bias as i know some people there, but definitely worth the money spent. With performance media, you only pay for what you get... i.e pay per click? Or you can choose a less effective method and pay per 1,000 impressions.


Considering they get 8 million AUSTRALIAN viewers to their home page every month, it’s not a bad way to go..

JD

[Thomas]

I have been using a couple of different affiliate programs that pay me per click for a certain ad. One pays me 5cents the other 40cents.

This is on my blog at the moment and I only just implimented the 40cent one about 30minutes ago and already had one click. the 5cent one has been on my previous blog for about a month and has made me close to $10.

I am going to start looking at private ad sales as well.

[rosshill]

One pays me 5cents the other 40cents.

Care to share the 40c one? I'd love to check it out.