Among other interesting facts, the Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2009 report revealed that “search ads” (which would include Google AdSense in this context) were the 2nd most popular blog monetization method, while “affiliate marketing links” came 3rd [more here].
It isn’t unusual for an affiliate to run AdSense units simultaneously with affiliate banners, text links and other creatives. Here’s, for example, how one affiliate does it:
Are these two methods conflicting (one being detrimental to the best performance of the other), or can they be complimentary?
I’ve spoken with one super affiliate who has split-tested the performance of webpages with affiliate links only versus those that had both affiliate links and AdSense units. It turned out that the addition of AdSense boxes did not cause any decrease in his affiliate revenue, but on the contrary, increased that affiliate’s earnings by adding a new income-generating method.
It’s worth experimenting on your own, and complimenting AdSense ads with affiliate links, and/or vice versa. Chances are, you’ll discover that it’s really not an “either… or…” question, but a “both… and…” one.
Feel free to share your comments below. I’d love to hear other affiliates’ thoughts and experiences on this question.
About Geno Prussakov
CEO & Founder of AM Navigator – an award-winning OPM agency. Founder & Chair of Affiliate Management Days conference. Author of bestselling "A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing" (2007) and "Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day" (2011), speaker, consultant, and affiliate marketing evangelist.
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Tags: adsense, affiliate strategies, blog monetization, Google AdSense
I use AdSense on pages that don’t have affiliate links, but never thought of adding them on all pages. Maybe I’ll test it out for a few weeks
Yes, I’m hearing from other affiliates that affiliate revenue is not affected by such an addition. So, worth an experiment… If/when you have results of the test, I’d love to hear about them!