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Affilaite sales down, should I add adsense?

by Anton543
14 replies
I used to make a nice little income each month on a site of mine that used to get around 50 unques a day. The average was around $250 a month. Five or six sales and the commison would usually approach or top $300. This was achieved consistently for about two/three years. However, the sales over the last year has fallen off dramatically, and sometimes I am lucky now to get a single sale. Other than the fact that the merchants are now selling on Amazon I don't see anything particularly different. The products seem to still be having the same demand levels, they haven't been replaced by more effective products, which of course would be a good reason for sales going down.

And this (sales dropping off) started happening just as I was about to scale things up. I was planning on adding more content to the site and even dabble in Adwords (though Google is very strict on what you could advertise with Adwords). Should I add Adsense? I could add two blocks per page (other than the affilaite review pages). This will result in fewer people clicking on to the review pages but I would probably be looking at $50-100 a month.
#add #adsense #affilaite #sales
  • Profile picture of the author MikeMizOne
    Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post

    I used to make a nice little income each month on a site of mine that used to get around 50 unques a day. The average was around $250 a month. Five or six sales and the commison would usually approach or top $300. This was achieved consistently for about two/three years. However, the sales over the last year has fallen off dramatically, and sometimes I am lucky now to get a single sale. Other than the fact that the merchants are now selling on Amazon I don't see anything particularly different. The products seem to still be having the same demand levels, they haven't been replaced by more effective products, which of course would be a good reason for sales going down.
    Have you checked the trends around the product you're promoting? They might not be as popular you think.

    Checked if everything works on your website?

    Where is your current traffic coming from? The same source as before?
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    • Profile picture of the author Anton543
      Originally Posted by MikeMizOne View Post

      Have you checked the trends around your product you're promoting? They might not be as popular you think.

      Checked if everything works on your website?

      Where is your current traffic coming from? The same source as before?
      The variables have been pretty constant in that time so the drop in sales is difficult to explain. Its difficult to know exactly if demand for the products have fallen hugely, it doesn't appear to be, because I am still getting similar number of people clicking on to the reviews from other pages on the site and also my communications with the merchants indicate they convert at a very decent level,so what options do I have? Its difficult to stay motivated as far as this site is concerned when the primary income for the site drops off a cliff.
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeMizOne
        Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post

        The variables have been pretty constant in that time so the drop in sales is difficult to explain. Its difficult to know exactly if demand for the products have fallen hugely, it doesn't appear to be, because I am still getting similar number of people clicking on to the reviews from other pages on the site and also my communications with the merchants indicate they convert at a very decent level,so what options do I have? Its difficult to stay motivated as far as this site is concerned when the primary income for the site drops off a cliff.
        Check the trends for your product? https://www.google.com/trends/ It's not very scientific but might give you good indicator of how big the demand is at the moment.

        I take it that you have checked that your affiliate links work as well?
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  • Profile picture of the author smasif15
    The average RPM (revenue per thousand impressions of an ad) is fairly low in most niches, so you won’t get much side income from AdSense unless you have a very large audience. For example, if you average $3 RPM, you need a thousand visitors per day to pay for your daily cost
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  • Profile picture of the author cqureshi
    AdSense needs a very large audience. If you average more than 2 RPM and have about two thousand visitors per day then you will get around 10 dollars per day...
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    • Profile picture of the author Anton543
      Originally Posted by cqureshi View Post

      AdSense needs a very large audience. If you average more than 2 RPM and have about two thousand visitors per day then you will get around 10 dollars per day...
      $10 a day ($300 a month) on 2000 quite well targeted visitors on a very niche site is a lot of vistors for little reward. Affiliate programs could bring in four/five times as much. Selling your products could raise that still further. Anyway, I am not getting anywhere near 2000 visitors, my vistor count averages around 50 uniques a day.
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  • Profile picture of the author StexM
    Banned
    absolutely do not recommend to put AdSense on your site.

    Would you go to create only confusion for your visitors, for two pennies.

    If you earn a little with the affiliate marketing, you can not think of AdSense as a solution.

    With 50 visitors a day you would be lucky to earn $ 10 - $ 20 regardless of the niche!

    Have you not suffered drops in traffic?

    Obviously, as you yourself have said, that product might not like more or have reached saturation.

    Why not offer something new?

    There are a slew of products out there ready to be promoted!

    Also, how many are your unique visitors?

    How many new visitors your blog receives each month?

    If the same people visit it, then you have to work to bring new traffic.

    Finally, are you using the traffic to build your mailing list?

    This could blow up your profits!

    I wish you huge success!
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  • Profile picture of the author Anton543
    Mike, thanks for the link to Google Trends. Unbelievably, I have actually never used this tool before despite running sites for few years now. My top selling product actually shows less than half the level of interest compared to the time it was selling really well for me. According to Google Trends, interest was at 100% in 2009 through to 2012, then started falling steadily and now around 30% in 2015. Could this be the explanation? Is it possible for products to show drop in level of interest only to pick up again?The most popular product in my niche is very saturated and two or three merchants control around 90% of the market. I wonder if I could do a deal with one of them to pay me an x amount a month to publish a sitewide banner and link on my site to send traffic to their site. But the problem here is, everyone seeking out this niche is pretty much aware of the product. Also there are no affiliate programs for it. I will shoot them an email to see if they have a dropship program (I am sure they don't).

    Stex, You make some good points. I think I might need to start building a list. Do I send out my regular posts or should they be something different? When I am ready to sell to them, let's say I come across a merhcant offering 25% discount and I want to let my list know about it, how do I benefit if I don't have an affilaite program with the merchant?
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeMizOne
      Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post

      Mike, thanks for the link to Google Trends. Unbelievably, I have actually never used this tool before despite running sites for few years now. My top selling product actually shows less than half the level of interest compared to the time it was selling really well for me. According to Google Trends, interest was at 100% in 2009 through to 2012, then started falling steadily and now around 30% in 2015. Could this be the explanation? Is it possible for products to show drop in level of interest only to pick up again?
      I think it's very possible that's the reason. But it's weird you're getting the same amount of traffic from the same source even if the product is not as popular anymore.
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  • Profile picture of the author J50
    I had a similar problem, I don't think Adsense will help you much. Can you not promote another affiliate product?
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  • Profile picture of the author greenowl123
    You might want to consider putting up some relevant CPA offers (contextual links) instead of using Adsense.

    I lost my Adsense account back in 2011 (thanks to my dumb decision to use Adf.ly traffic). I was making about $600 a month at the time, from keywords that had a pay-off of $5 to $10 a click) and then after being banned from Adsense, began putting up relevant CPA offers as text links, and was surprised to earn more than I was with Adsense.
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      I do have some sites where I utilize both Adsense and Affiliate Products. It works nice,

      Not sure if it will apply to your Site or not.

      Best thing to do is test it


      - Robert Andrew
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    • Profile picture of the author Anton543
      Originally Posted by greenowl123 View Post

      You might want to consider putting up some relevant CPA offers (contextual links) instead of using Adsense.

      I lost my Adsense account back in 2011 (thanks to my dumb decision to use Adf.ly traffic). I was making about $600 a month at the time, from keywords that had a pay-off of $5 to $10 a click) and then after being banned from Adsense, began putting up relevant CPA offers as text links, and was surprised to earn more than I was with Adsense.
      Do you mean add affiliate links sparingly within the content? But then you won't be pre-selling the users if they are sent directly to the product page/offer.
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