Ok. I'm dumb. Adsense vs. Clickbank, other affilaites.

Well if you have adsense on a product site you're asking for failure. If you are trying to sell a product, either yours or somebody else's, you best not have any ads for them to click away. There should be one place for them to click. BUY. Nothing else.

Learning based sites - adsense is always a great way to monetize your space, particularly if it doesn't fit to promote a related product. Best, is to source very specific products to promote according to your sites content.

What you use to make money from your site really depends on how you set it up.

Personally i see different monetization methods.

1) Adsense (or other ad based advertising) - small amounts of regular money from ad clicks. No need to push a product, or do sales letters etc. Most niche sites are setup to use this method.

2) Affiliate Sales, sites are usually setup for a niche, or the product in question, Requires visitor to buy item, depending on the niche or software, can make more money then ad clicks, can make less. But generally requires a lot more targeted traffic then Ad sense.


There are a couple of more as well, There's CPA - cost per action, it's kinda 1/2 in between ad clicks and affiliate sales, it requires a person to take an action - ie fill out a form, and you'll get paid for it, usually more then adclicks, but less then affiliate sales.

I'll leave it at that for now, there are ALOT more ways to generate income, however these are the main 3 that people (or internet marketers) seem to try.

With adsense you are getting paid for people clicking on ads on your site.

With clickbank, you are promoting products and getting a % when people buy something you promoted.

I think it depends on your niche and what your target audience is after. For example if you have a website that gives reviews on bicycles then I would monetize that with Amazon products rather than Adsense because your customers are looking for bicycles.

If you have more of an information site, like 'how to become a kindergarten teacher' then your audience isn't looking to buy anything but are looking for information, so this type of site I would monetize with Adsense.

You really need to do your niche research based on what method of monetization you plan on using.

Go with clickbank or amazon if you wish to have a long-term model. Although you can make decent amount from Adsense, it's hard to tell if your account will last. I see so many people having their accounts banned for some unexplainable reasons... I am switching my longterm plan to Amazon...