Affiliate marketing has truly grown up from the old days. Marketers have turned the Web into a virtual commercial around every corner. As a publisher, this is a GREAT thing. There are a wide array of streams available to the modern day publisher that allow you to take advantage of the most successful revenue stream for your audience. I’m making an assumption you understand the concept of ‘Cost Per Click’ or CPC advertising.
There are people earning passive income that think CPC advertising has seen it’s days and is no longer an effective method of building wealth but there are three reasons I think you should keep at least one CPC stream in your methods.
1. Contextual CPC Ads are relevant ads
When using static advertising methods, you have the same ads on every page. A Contextual based ad, one selected based on the keywords used on a specific page, helps target the concept the user is looking for in an ad. Depending on how you write you content, these ads can be extremely well selected and with tools like ‘Better AdSense Targeting for WordPress‘, you can increase the accuracy by helping your advertising partner know what content on your site to use when choosing ads.
2. CPC Ads are typically less work
While this may not always be true, depending on your publishing platform, you may have the ability to easily place Contextual CPC ads with a few simple shortcuts. The rest of the decisions are left up to the ad provider to choose which ads to display. Most Affiliate programs you will need to go hunt down a link and image for in order to display it. I’m in the niche website game to earn income and one thing every niche website owner can tell you is ‘Time is Money’. If I can quickly replicate my results, I can earn more income.
3. CPC Providers sell ads, not products
You may ask yourself why this is important. Well it all comes down to, products are slowly being taxable on the internet. The recent Amazon Tax has forced some affiliate programs to close it’s doors on some states, leaving those passive income earnings high and dry with no income. CPC campaign providers like Google’s AdSense and AdBrite sell ad space to product owners, and you get paid to have their banners clicked, not when something is purchased. This leaves us in a state where we can freely earn income without having to worry about sales taxes.
What are your current revenue streams? How are they working for you? Do you currently implement a Cost Per Click type of advertising on your niche site?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I pretty much focus on adsense and started infolinks. I find the affiliate stuff for me is difficult to produce, I do have some though. Gets frustrating on those low click days though =o)
I agree Jeff, low click through days drive me insane, but it’s all just a numbers game. I just try to focus on the views over the clicks. With increased views I’m sure increased clicks will happen.