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AdSense versus Affiliate Programs – Special ReportSponsored by the AdSenseShop.comGoogle AdSenseversusAffiliate ProgramsWhich are more profitable for you?By William CharlwoodAuthor: The Definitive Guide to Google opyright 2005 William Charlwood. All rights reserved.Visit http:// www.FactsAboutAdSense.com for more information about AdSense

AdSense versus Affiliate Programs – Special ReportSponsored by the AdSenseShop.comTrademarksGoogle, AdWords and AdSense are trademarks of Google, Inc. VisitorVilleis a trademark of World Market Watch, Inc.DisclaimerThe author has produced this work purely as a discussion paper and makesno warranty whatsoever about its contents. Any use of the informationcontained herein is at the reader’s own risk and the author accepts noliability whatsoever for any actions taken or not taken by the reader as aresult of this report.About the AuthorWilliam Charlwood is an internet marketing consultant based in Wiltshire in the UK. He consults mainlyon Google-related issues to companies in the UK and Europe.He specialises in helping businesses attract low cost sales leads and increasing the success companywebsites have in converting visitors into paying customers.As an internet marketer he runs the popular ezine “The AdSense Insider” which anyone can subscribe toby sending an email to adsense@getresponse.com and he is the author of a number of books and specialreports on AdSense including The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense.Sponsored by The AdSense ShopAdSenseShop.com has sponsored this Special ReportCopyright 2005 William Charlwood. All rights reserved.Visit http:// www.FactsAboutAdSense.com for more information about AdSense

AdSense versus Affiliate Programs – Special ReportSponsored by the AdSenseShop.comIntroductionLet’s just define a few things to make sure we are on the same wavelengthbefore we kick off.An affiliate program is one set up by a company or an individual who isprepared to pay you if you introduce a customer to them who then goes onto make a purchase.So, as an example, I sell ebooks other than my own and when I get a sale,the authors pay me a commission. Typically this commission is 50%. Forother products the commission rate may be lower. Affiliate marketing isreally the internet equivalent of selling products in a shop and marking upthe price you pay to the original supplier.Many companies, as well as individual entrepreneurs, positively encouragepeople like you and me to become their affiliates simply because it can be ahighly effective way of increasing their market share.AdSense is Google Adwords’ affiliate programAdSense is, in one respect, Google’s own affiliate program for its AdWordsadvertising system. Google gets people to open an AdWords account but itonly makes a sales and makes any money when someone clicks on an ad. Ifthe click occurs on one of Google’s sites, they get all the money.If that ad happens to be on your site via AdSense, then Google essentiallypays you a commission on the click.Now suppose you are in a situation where you spot an AdSense ad on yoursite for a product or service which also has an affiliate program. Are youbest off sticking with the AdSense ads or signing up for the affiliateprogram?In other words, which way are you going to make the most money?This Special Report explores this area so that you can make a reasonedjudgement about what is best for your website.Have you thought through all the issues?Before you can decide whether to go with AdSense or the Affiliate programyou need to think through the process. The key issue, of course, is theCopyright 2005 William Charlwood. All rights reserved.Visit http:// www.FactsAboutAdSense.com for more information about AdSense

AdSense versus Affiliate Programs – Special ReportSponsored by the AdSenseShop.comrelative profitability of the two alternatives and we’ll be looking at thenumbers shortly but there are other factors you need to consider too.The most significant non-financial ones are time and relevance.Time management is one of the biggest problems with any form of internetmarketing because there is always more you can do to improve sales, buildtraffic, and drive up your income.My philosophy is to do one thing at a time and to do only those things thatwill deliver increased profitability over the long term and won’t need anymaintenance in the process.In terms of brand-relevance, this will really depend on your target market. Ifyou need to maintain a strong brand online but have nonetheless decided touse AdSense because it serves up relevant ads, it is an additional step todecide to promote other products via affiliate programs. You need to becertain they don’t diminish the overall experience visitors have when theyland on your site.Implementing AdSenseIf you place AdSense ads on your site, all you need to do is add Google’sAdSense code into your HTML. After that, assuming you get traffic andclicks, you just need to pay in Google’s checks.If you have a template page that you replicate whenever you add anotherpage to your site and include your AdSense code in this template page thenthe whole process is extremely simple and, importantly, low maintenance.Once you’ve created a page with the AdSense code in it, you are thentapping into Google’s advertising inventory. In other words, you areautomatically offering your web space to hundreds of thousands ofadvertisers. Google will select the ads most relevant to your pageautomatically and these will be the ones that get seen by visitors to yourwebsite.What’s more, the ads will vary automatically depending on where in theworld the visitor is so that they are most relevant to him/her which issomething that you would find extremely hard to replicate yourself.So Google is certainly simplifying matters for you here and don’t forget thatcollecting payments from all these advertisers and turning them into a singlecheck is another service of significant value.Copyright 2005 William Charlwood. All rights reserved.Visit http:// www.FactsAboutAdSense.com for more information about AdSense

AdSense versus Affiliate Programs – Special ReportSponsored by the AdSenseShop.comImagine having to chase after 50 or more advertisers each month for a fewdollars each!Finally of course, Google saves you the effort of going out to potentialadvertisers and doing a sales job in the first place. There’s no way youreally want to get into that game. Instead you can rely on the strength ofGoogle’s brand to acquire “customers” i.e. advertisers, on your behalf.So Google is really delivering an excellent service to you with AdSense.But there’s a catch.Google only shares the income it gets with you. You don’t get the full valueof the click even if you use all the income-boosting tricks in the bag.In summary, in return for taking a share of the income it generates whensomeone clicks on an AdSense ad on your site, Google provides anexcellent, highly sophisticated and effective service.Affiliate advertising as an alternativeNow what about the alternative approach of replacing AdSense ads with adsfor things that you have set up affiliate deals with?First up of course, there may simply be no affiliate program available thatsuits your site in which case there’s nothing more to do – just go withAdSense.But let’s suppose you’ve installed AdSense on your site and you are gettingsome clicks and that you’ve noticed one ad that repeatedly appears on yoursite that you know has an associated affiliate program.Should you create your own ad instead of sticking with AdSense for thatproduct?The first thing to do is to check out the merits of the affiliate program in thefirst place and to show you how to do this I’m going to walk through anexample.Copyright 2005 William Charlwood. All rights reserved.Visit http:// www.FactsAboutAdSense.com for more information about AdSense

AdSense versus Affiliate Programs – Special ReportSponsored by the AdSenseShop.comExample: VisitorVilleVisitorVille.com provides a websitestatistics service with an amusing andinformative twist: visitors to yourwebsite can be watched in real timemoving from one page to another as ifthey were in a cartoon. It’s a bit like“The Sims” combined with web stats.The visualisations are excellent and cantell you some interesting things aboutthe behaviour of your visitors. Forexample, anyone coming to your site viaGoogle arrives on the “Google Bus” and gets driven to the building thatrepresents the page they land on. The tallest buildings are the most popularpages and you can pan around your “web Ville” to learn quickly where thehot spots are.You can also set things up so that a “ding-dong” noise is made wheneversomeone new lands on your site – just like a door-bell.As a product VisitorVille has immense visual appeal whilst delivering solidanalytical value.I first spotted an AdSense ad for VisitorVille on a website that competeswith VisitorVille (that’s something you need to watch out for with AdSense– I explain how you can keep competitor ads off in The Definitive Guide toGoogle AdSense) and paid them a visit.Affiliate program checklistI had 8 questions that I wanted answered:1. Was there an affiliate program?2. Did it pay out good commissions?3. Did it appear to be well thought out?4. Was it supported by advertising media such as free ads I couldcopy?5. Did it have any particular positive or negative features?Copyright 2005 William Charlwood. All rights reserved.Visit http:// www.FactsAboutAdSense.com for more information about AdSense

AdSense versus Affiliate Programs – Special ReportSponsored by the AdSenseShop.com6. How did it pay commission?7. Did I think it would sell and how good was the sales copy?8. Did it fit in with the potential interests of my site visitors?These are all questions you should ask of an affiliate program before makingthe decision to join up.What I found was this: Did an affiliate program exist?Yes. VisitorVille does have an affiliate program which means I couldtheoretically apply to join it. The application process also lookedstraightforward. Did it pay out good commissions?Yes, not the best going, but reasonable at 30%. VisitorVille also offers a10% commission on 2nd tier sales too which means that if you sign up anaffiliate under you and they make a sale, you get 10% of the value of thatas well. See note below about recurring commissions too. Did it appear to be well thought out?Yes. There was clear evidence of a well-supported affiliate program and Ilater learnt that I got answers to some questions I submitted both byemail and by the “live help” facility. Was it supported by advertising media?Yes. There were various alternative image ads I could use and they arequite eye-catching. Did it have any particular positive or negative features?On the negative side, the trial program was one big download –something like 11 megabytes!On the positive side, however, there were two strong benefits: thisaffiliate program offers the opportunity for on-going, or recurringincome.Why?Copyright 2005 William Charlwood. All rights reserved.Visit http:// www.FactsAboutAdSense.com for more information about AdSense