Affiliate Marketing Outside The Box
By: John Elder posted in Affiliate Marketing
Hello good people!
Well it looks like we’re finally getting a break from the heat wave here in Chicago. My poor air conditioner couldn’t keep up and died on me yesterday but I quickly replaced it, and now I don’t even need it!
Today I want to talk for a few minutes on something that a lot of Adsense Thick/Thin site people often overlook, namely; affiliate marketing.
Sure, the main way to monetize our type of websites is by slapping some Adsense ads up and sitting back while the money rolls in.
But it shouldn’t be the only way you make money.
Things happen, Adsense kicks people out of the program all the time – often confiscating any money they owe you up until that point. You really should have an alternative in place.
I’ve talked about alternatives here in the past. Right now I’m running a test of Shopzilla on several hundred websites to see how well they do. So far the results aren’t too encouraging.
And of course, I always use both amazon and ebay to monetize sites. I love and use the awesome PhpZon plugin that handles all that stuff automatically.
Those are all what I like to call “Traditional” monetization methods, but you should also think outside the box…
There are literally infinite numbers of affiliate programs you can join that will pay you a commission on tons of different products and services. CPA offers are also good in this regard.
Why not replace the Adsense Ads on your site with Ads that you create yourself that LOOK exactly like adsense ads (ie formatted in the same exact way) but that point to an affiliate program you’re a member of instead of Adsense?!
Can’t find a specific affiliate program that sells the specific product your site is about? Look to amazon! They sell everything.
Sign up as an affiliate there and they’ll give you a bit of code that you can use to create links to amazon products. There are a ton of widgets that you can use that will actually put pictures of those amazon products right on your site (like phpzon), but you don’t even need that really.
Why not create your own Adsense looking ads but have them point to your amazon affiliate URL?
The possibilities are endless.
By just focusing on Adsense, you’re putting all your eggs in one very unsteady basket. You should spend some time thinking outside the box for non-traditional monetization methods like the ones I mentioned today.
What interesting monetization methods have you come up with that worked out well for you? Share in the comments section…
Keep on building!
-John Elder
The Marketing Fool!
