Affiliate Marketing vs Pay Per Click Ads

Those who are considering monetizing their blog or website for a few extra bucks commonly have this question un mind-"Should I become an affiliate marketer or just slap some ads on my blog and hope that I get a lot of clicks?"

For those who do not know what Affiliate Marketing is, it's basically referring someone else's product and earning a commission or every sale, whereas in PPC (Pay Per Click) Marketing, you get paid for every visitor (a potential customer) you (the affiliate) send to the advertiser whether or not they make a sale.

Affiliate Marketing is suitable for those who have made themselves a strong name in their niche, since the products they recommend seem worth the price because people trust the affiliate.
I've seen bloggers making thousands of dollar by this method, because they may earn anywhere between $20-$200 (or more) in commissions for every sale!. That is they get 50% -80% of the product value.

PPC Marketing (best examples are Google's Adsense and Chitika) is suitable for those who get lots of traffic (thousands of visitors everyday). Some ads from Adsense pay the ad publisher for the number of times the ad is loaded or displayed on their blog, thus the publisher earns even when the ads are not clicked.
The publisher may earn about a few cents to $5 for a click depending on the ad. Sure, those who get lots of traffic can benefit from both affiliate marketing as well as PPC ads. Those who do not get sufficient traffic, becoming an affiliate is the only way to earn solid money.

You can become an affiliate by signing up at Amazon, Clickbank, etc. But I recommend only these two as they are reliable, have good consumer support and have lots of products to offer (I use Clickbank).
If you have PPC in mind, Google's Adsense is the best solution (though at times they are known to de-activate your account stating various reasons resulting in loss of  the earnings and honest effort put in by the publisher for gaining clicks. I myself faced this a few months ago and have now turned to affiliate marketing).

Here are the pros and cons of Affiliate Marketing and PPC which will help you decide your method of monetizing your site.

Affiliate Marketing 


Pros: 
  • Earning potential is very large.
  • You can earn anywhere between $20 and $100 ( about 50%-80% of the product value) for every sale.
  • Traffic requirement need not be more as in the case of PPC ads.
Cons:
  • Marketing skill is a must for the affiliate.
  • You must be pretty famous under your niche. It takes time and hard work by participating in forums, etc.
  • You don't get paid for the clicks. Thus you don't use the full potential of the traffic you get.
PPC Marketing

Pros:
  • No marketing skills required.
  • Earning guaranteed (almost) when you have lots of traffic.
  • You get contextualized ads ( ads that are related to your blog content) automatically.
Cons:
  • Requires lots of traffic(in turn clicks) even to earn a few dollars.
  • Requires you to research earning potential of keywords time to time using various tool like Adwords' keyword researcher.
  • Requires proper placement of ads on your blog or website.
I wish you the best in your online venture. Please share some points if I have missed anything or a few suggestions by commenting.




Comments

  1. Great info...Thanks for sharing.
    I don't have traffic right now on my new website. Just signed up at Clickbank. Hope everything goes well :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. RDM does free Adwords PPC audits, just call them at 207-618-8998

    ReplyDelete

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