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Why I’m Not a Fan of Affiliate Advertising
By JLP | February 12, 2007
This is a post about my blogging experience.
I’m not a fan of affiliate advertising. For those of you who don’t know, affiliate advertising is advertising in which the website owner gets paid only on a conversion or sale. Usually the blogger (or website owner) signs up with a company like Commission Junction, and finds companies that they think would work well on their site. In the past I have had affiliate links for Sharebuilder, Wall Street Journal, and other companies closely-related to personal finance. The ONLY advertisement that earned me anything was Sharebuilder and I think I earned something like $60 in a year, while Sharebuilder got a prime spot on my blog for nearly two years. Sharebuilder got the better end of that deal!
Here’s why I don’t like affiliate advertising:
1. The advertiser gets LOTS of exposure and pays little or nothing for it. I have to give up valuable space on my blog to offer something that may or may not generate income.
2. There’s no guarantee that the advertiser is going to be honest with me. I mean really, how do I know they aren’t selling product and just not giving me credit for it? I’m not saying they are, it’s just that I don’t know if they are or not.
After testing out various affiliate programs for about a year and half, I decided to take down all affiliate advertisements except for Amazon.com, which does pretty well for me. I now only carry advertisements for companies that pay for a spot, which I think works out great. I get a steady stream of income and the advertiser gets space on my blog. I don’t have to worry about any funny business because I get paid BEFORE I post the advertisement. It works out great for everyone.
Now, I’m not saying affiliate advertising is bad. I just couldn’t make it work for me.
Topics: Blogging | 9 Comments »
February 12th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
I think it depends on the blog personally. But some work better with adsense, others work better with CJ type ads.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It certainly helps.
- Bryan
February 12th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Affiliate stuff works when you integrate it in with your content. I had a sharebuilder promotional code page where I listed all sorts of free money codes with Sharebuilder, I found out they had an affiliate program, put the sharebuilder link up and it generated a sizable income for me. Putting up an ad won’t get it done, you have to give people a reason to use the service in the first place.
February 12th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
So why you have Google ads on your blog?
February 12th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Moneymonk,
Because they work.
February 12th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Nice post. Are the links to the right (calculators, money blogs, other great blogs, resources …) paid ads? Or are they just links?
February 12th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Good post.
I think I will work this into my program.
Cheers
February 12th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I didn’t have advertising on my site for the first 15 months. Somebody suggested to me that I start google’s adsense program just to make back my costs for hosting the blog. Gotta say… it brings in money, even though I believe the pay-per-click model is fatally flawed. Those sharebuilder programs are a joke–I’ve heard more than once what a bad deal they are.
February 13th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Interesting. The Google ads haven’t been doing all that well for me, so I’m experimenting with the cj.com stuff. We’ll see how it goes.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:02 am
EBay affiliate program does pretty well for me — it’s through CJ. You can link to any page on eBay and if there’s a fee within a week you get a commission.