What Affiliates And Ad Networks Work Best For You?
-
I’ve been pondering which affiliates I should focus on lately. And I don’t mean just the affiliate services themselves, but the actual advertisers within those affiliates.I’ve recently signed up with the likes of LinkShare and PepperJam, but have yet to fully integrate their ads on all of my blogs.
So I thought I’d open it up to your points of view. What advertising networks and/or affiliates have you had the most success with? I’ve gone back and forth with Google AdSense, but sadly, most of the “contextually” sensitive ads have to do with drums (imagine that
). I have not had success with affiliates that require someone to make a purchase although I’m still open to that if the product is an easy sell. I’d much prefer the kind that offer money for leads as I think that’s a much more realistic scenario to expect from most visitors.
Which ones do you like? Which do you not like? I’m interested in your thoughts.
Leave a Comment
February 7, 2008 at 6:11 am
Hm. Can’t say that I’ve had much success with ANYTHING thus far, but I think that’s because I really haven’t put the “pieces into play” thus far. I’m really hoping that by this weekend I’ll have some pepperjam stuff up so I can get this Feb rolling!
Bush Mackel’s last blog post..I Love the Shylock AdSense Plugin
February 7, 2008 at 7:10 am
@Bush
It’s a funny thing about Pepperjam. I was in the process of removing their huge ad I’ve placed on my sidebar. When I saw that someone had actually signed up through me (thus making $5), I decided to keep it.
February 7, 2008 at 7:45 am
I don’t run ads on all my blogs but the one that had ads had almost all removed (Kontera – only slowing things down and annoying, Bidvertiser – nothing special, some affiliate sales – waste of space). I focused on private ad sales, gave some free ad space to regular visitors and commentators and moved adsense block down the page as it did not make any significant money… and guess what … adsense earnings picked up
BizGiftGuru’s last blog post..BizGifts and Chinese New Year Part 2
February 7, 2008 at 11:19 pm
@BizGiftGuru
Welcome to MeAndMyDrum!
Ultimately, I think direct advertising is the way to go, just a matter of getting the popularity they want and the right deal. (maybe one of these day!) I agree with you about Kontera, not only did they slow down my blog when I used them last year, but I found they kept getting in the way. They’re still a good service, but My tolerance level is too low right now.
February 8, 2008 at 3:18 pm
It depends on the blog content, IMHO.
My music sites have always done well with Adsense, Amazon.
Technical blogs are tougher.
One mistake I think a lot of people make is not trying to cross sell. Music blogs can sell Movies, Celebrity blogs can sell fashion stuff, etc…
PepperJam looks great because you can mash up the ads and place an Ad on a specific post.
David Cooley’s last blog post..Super Tuesday Results in a Google Map Twitter Mashup
February 8, 2008 at 8:16 pm
@David
Hehe, speaking as one blog owner who has a musical instrument in its name, I’d have to agree with you about Adsense doing well with that sort of thing. Hope you have luck with PepperJam. Some of their advertisers do offer nice payouts on lead generation.
February 9, 2008 at 12:44 am
Hey Mark!
By default, Adsense is the easiest way for me to make money online. It doesn’t require me to apply any kind of sales tactics, it doesn’t require me to do anything special. I just write what I write and because Google Adsense is so full of advertisers, 9 out of 10 times, I’ll have ads that match my content perfectly.
With that being said, Adsense doesn’t make a lot. It takes traffic. Traffic is a huge challenge for anyone. For me, it has seemed to be easier running 100 little sites that get around 100 visits per day versus one gigantic site.
In 2007, Adsense allowed me to build up income. I saved most of all the money. However, now in 2008, I really want more than just Adsense. By itself, Adsense isn’t likely to get you rich.
I have played around with Amazon… its hit or miss. In Dec. 07, I sent Amazon over 15,000 clicks and only generated a handful of sales. I lost big… 15,000 Adsense clicks would have been a lot better.
Clickbank does very well for me. I am pretty new with promoting it actively. So far, it has performed well for me. There are tons of products available. I basically grabbed a few I liked and purchased myself to promote under my namesake. The results have been great.
LinkShare doesn’t do that good for me. It has the same effect as Amazon. I send tons of traffic to the participating sites with zero return. Thus, it costs me money rather than make money.
CommissionJunction. This program works well for me. The reason why is simple. I can hand pick what I feel is Hot and discard things that are not. CommissionJunction has pretty much every vendor you can think of.
AsSeenOnTV. This program works very well for me. I have the TV on late at night and listen to the infomercials. I know what is hot and what is not. I promote the products that I see on TV. There are spikes in search traffic caused by the TV commercials. I allow the advertiser to pay the big bucks on the free TV advertising and then sneak in behind them and capture the sale.
PepperJam. This is my new love… PepperJam is quickly becoming my favorite program to work with. Kris is absolutely amazing and a very caring person who wants more than ever to see others find success. Their program is very attractive, modern and state of the art. I would go so far to say that PepperJam is an affiliate marketer’s dream come true. The advertisers within their network and products available for me to promote and sell are appealing to consumers. The creatives and banners are superior and very compelling. Most advertisers pay very high commission as well as lead gens.
All in all, I hope this helps you. As always, email or IM me anytime if you need help.
Best Regards,
Garry Conn
Garry Conn’s last blog post..Best Deals on Sugar Free Jelly Beans
February 9, 2008 at 10:14 pm
@Garry
Thanks for that great response! I’ve heard of most of those, but will definitely look into others as well. Even though I’m new to Pepperjam, I agree on two points. I surmise that Kris is your rep; Mandy is mine, and they both seem very nice and very helpful. Secondly, they do have attractive compensation for lead generation.
August 26, 2008 at 2:42 am
I haven’t tried using is affiliate programs because i feel a bit lost about it. What i really use is google adsense i find it easy to use. Though I have friends who uses cj or CommissionJunction and they are giving me good feedbacks about it.
Laura mom of a growing familys last blog post..14 Reasons to Rush Your Pet to Vet Emergency
August 26, 2008 at 4:10 am
@Laura
Welcome to MeAndMyDrum!
Let me know if you have any questions about it and I’ll do my best to answer. Essentially, after joining a program, you just browse through their list of merchants to select a product or service you feel like you can promote. You either select or join with that merchant and use whatever ads or text links they have. Then you either post about that product, or even better, if you have a mailing list you can send that information out to, then you’re right on track.
December 19, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Adsense is a waste of time unless you have 100s to 1000s of people coming to your website. Has this been the case with anyone else.
I have had Adsense for several months now and I have not made one dime. I know adsense works for some people but I do not see how?
Wesleys last blog post..Roy scores 52 as Blazers beat Phoenix
December 21, 2008 at 11:22 pm
@Wesley
Thanks for taking the time to comment and welcome to MeAndMyDrum.
I know how you feel about Adsense. True, it’s only as good as the traffic you receive, but you don’t need 1000s of visitors to make it pay off. You increase your chances of success by carefully selecting the keywords you post about which will (hopefully) show up in the SERPs. That’s only a part of the equation, of course, but don’t stop trying.
January 13, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I’ve tried a bit of adsense with some luck — and maybe there’s some hope for doing music / album / book reviews and trying out something like amazon? supposing you had enough traffic and an audience who was willing to listen?
Matty Bylooss last blog post..Wordless Wednesday: 1.07.09
January 13, 2009 at 9:43 pm
@Matty
Indeed, the key to AdSense is strong traffic. Thanks for taking the time to comment and welcome to MeAndMyDrum.
January 20, 2009 at 9:42 am
As for me i only depend on my adense coz im still a newbie in blogging, so i’m doing the best that i could to get strong traffic.