Todays blog is all about Adsense vs Affiliate Marketing. What are they? Which is the best income generator or should you use both? Are there any Adsense alternatives?
What is AdSense?
AdSense is a platform where advertisers and publishers come together. If you have a blog and want a steady source of income, then AdSense is one of the best options you have. The platform, operated by Google, enables you as a blogger to publish ads on your website and get paid for it. AdSense automatically takes care of which ads will get displayed on your website. Usually, the ads shown on your blog will be relevant to your content or at least as close to it as possible. The ads can come in different forms, such as images, videos, text or other interactive formats.
Although most ads are personalized, you don’t get any control over which ads get displayed on your website. It is different from affiliate marketing, where you can choose specific products and market them, but more about that later. Overall, AdSense is arguably the best ad publishing platform out there that you can use on your blog.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a term that is even older than the internet. In digital terms, affiliate marketing is a process in which you can promote and market third-party products or services that are specific to your audience on your blog. As an affiliate marketer, you can join different affiliate networks that allow you to promote a wide range of products from a selection of well-known brands. In exchange for promoting products, you get a specified commission, usually a percentage of the total value of the sale. Affiliate marketing requires more effort on your behalf, though, as you will need to not only promote products but convert leads into sales.
With affiliate marketing, you get more control over what you can promote. Almost all major brands in the world have an affiliate marketing program on affiliate marketing networks. It means you can start earning right away by promoting products from brands that cater to the need of your audience. As opposed to AdSense or some other ad publishing platforms, affiliate marketing is much more specific and personalized.
Differences between AdSense and Affiliate Marketing
From the above definitions of AdSense and Affiliate Marketing, you may have a general idea of what the differences between both methods are. You can find the main differences between AdSense and Affiliate marketing below.
Control
As discussed above, one of the main differences between AdSense and Affiliate Marketing is that AdSense takes over what your visitors see on your website. The AdSense algorithm is pretty accurate but sometimes misses the mark by a significant margin. If you think it doesn’t matter what your audience sees, then you are wrong. Even when it comes to ads displayed on your website, relevance is crucial.
Earnings
Due to AdSense’s dominance as an ad publishing network, your earnings depend on a preset rate. You don’t get to choose a different scheme as every publisher has to work with the same payment structure. On the other hand, Affiliate Marketing allows you to choose from a wide variety of brands to promote. Usually, each brand has its specific commission rate, which gives you much more flexibility with promotions.
Promotion Platforms
With AdSense, you need a blog or a website where you can display ads. It is worthwhile if you already have a website audience that can help you generate a good income. However, with Affiliate Marketing, you can promote your products on blogs, websites, mobile apps, emails, social media, etc. It allows you to promote your affiliate links anywhere as long as your affiliate network allows it.
Effort
With AdSense, you don’t have to make much effort as everything gets done for you. You merely have to place the ads on your website, and it will generate income for you. On the other hand, with affiliate marketing, you have to research the products you promote, what your audience likes, commission rates, and much more. Affiliate marketing requires some extra effort on your side. However, you can earn much more from it.
What if you use both of them?
You can use both AdSense and Affiliate Marketing to maximize your income from your blog. Using both allows you to monetize your blog and earn from multiple income streams. However, you need to have good traffic on your blog to be able to benefit from both. Whether you generate more earnings from AdSense or Affiliate Marketing depends on your blog and the type of your content. So, if you are going to use both, you should focus on the option that earns you more and passively use the other.
As mentioned above, for most blogs and websites, Affiliate marketing will generate more income. That is also because AdSense gives you a limited earning. If you get good monthly page views on your blog, especially anything above 10k views a month, you should consider switching to EZOIC. EZOIC is very similar to AdSense but allows you to earn much more as compared to AdSense. If you have a lower monthly page view count, though, you should wait till it increases and switch to EZOIC eventually.
If you enjoyed this article you might also like to read about Top Affiliate Programs.