Increase your website's profits with Affiliate and Advertising programs
There are many websites that promote themselves as being the best advertising networks,
but most will screw you out of your money. Through my own trials and errors over several
years of trying to maximize my own profits through displaying advertisements on my own
websites, I figured its time to share what I have learned. There really aren't very many
"good" paying websites to join up with to earn money through showing pop-ups
or banners.
There must be at least 100 different affiliate program websites out there. I am simply listing the
ones that I have dealt with, have had experience with. I believe that the affiliate marketing
websites I have listed are the very best of the best: I personally use them on all of my websites.
Traffic equals Profit. The total profits and money you can earn mostly depends on the total number
of people who visit your website. More visitors equals higher profits. Do NOT be discouraged by having
little traffic. I have one website that covers a small general knowledge of information, just for the
sake of having it. This website gets less than 75-150 unique visitors per day, and I am making
about $5 per week, between both PopUps and Banner CPM. This isn't much money, but, it's free money,
it's money I never have to "work" for ever again. If that website had 100x more visitors per week,
I would be making $500 per week: and not having to lift a finger. Simply put, affiliate programs earn cash
for you. Call me an optimist.
Please also realize, if you are new to all of this, that most affiliate websites have a 1 year life span. They
promote themselves as being really great and wonderful payouts and such, and then the next thing you know,
you haven't gotten paid for your earnings and effort, the advertiser you were with has now closed shop,
they have pocketed all of your money, and there is nothing you can do about it. Please
take notice of my "recommendations" below, as I feel that these are the highest paying affiliate programs
that exist on the internet.
Pop Ups
FastClick (Highly Recommended)
- I have averaged about $4.25 CPM from displaying 1 pop up per 24 hour period per unique visitor, displaying their popups. They have paid me promptly and I have never had any problems using FastClick.
PopUpTraffic (Recommended)
- They pay what they claim to pay, which are flat rates. Currently they are paying $3.00 CPM and $4.00 CPM, varying depending on what type of pop up is served. They range from "PopUp" "PopBehind" and "PopExit". They have been slow to pay, but they have always paid: Received a check for January's earnings at the end of April.
Helpful Tips
I would also like to point out that by showing PopUps on your website,
keeping repeat visitors is a lot harder. People are annoyed by PopUps: expect to lose about 10% to 20%
of your website traffic (as compared to what it was), as soon as you start displaying PopUps. If
you choose to use MultiPopUps (many many pop ups per visit), expect your traffic to decline at least
50% of what it was. People remember domain names, and remember what sites to not visit when they see
search engine results.
Banners
Google AdSense (Highly Recommended)
- I have averaged about $0.85 CPM from displaying their 728x468 and 468x60 Banners.
They have paid promptly and I have never had any problems using Google Adsense.
- They offer an "Alternate Ad Campaign" option. About 20% of the time, they will choose
to show a Public Service Ad instead of a regular 'for profit' ad. Public Service Ads generate
you zero profit. This makes signing up with another banner advertisement website a very good
choice if you want to maximize your profits and revenue. For example, if you signed
up with FastClick and you are showing 728x468 banner
ads on your website: make FastClick your secondary Ad Campaign, your Google Adsense's "alternate
ads", that way you can still make money on all of your traffic.
FastClick (Highly Recommended)
- I have averaged about $0.75 CPM from displaying their 728x468 and 120x60 Banners. They have paid me promptly and I have never had any problems using FastClick.
CompactBanner
- They pay $0.35 CPM from displaying their Banners AND PopUps. The code they provide you to display the banner, it also has embeded code which also forces 1 PopUp to display per unique visitor per 24 hour period. I have never had any problems with them, but I have read about other people who have had problems with them: slow payments and no payments for their earnings.
FastAdvert
- They pay $1.00 CPM for 468x60 Banners. This sounds like a great payout, but its not. They only credit you for 1 banner view per 1 unique visitor per 24 hour period. Its really $1.00 per 1000 unique visitors. The average visitor (on my websites) views about 6 pages before they leave. If each page has a banner (they all do), then I am really getting paid $1.00/6 = $0.1667 CPM. This is a very low payout, but they have paid me on time in the past so at this point I have had no problems with them.
Paid To Search
SearchTraffic (Recommended)
- They are paying $0.06 per search.
TargetWords
- They are paying $0.01 to $0.08 per search. I have averaged a little less than $0.04 per search in total earnings.
Black List
Don't bother trying to sign up with these sites, they are a waste of your time.
The reasons why I have them black listed vary:
And the black listed sites are:
Glossary of Terms: FAQ
Alternate Ad
A way to show a different ad campaign from a different website/network, through options given by your "primary" publisher network (such as Google Adsense or FastClick) so that empty ads or Public Service Ads are much much less likely to display, thereby maximizing your potential revenues.
CPM
Cost Per 1000 Impressions: "M" is the Roman Numeral for 1000. This terminology is usually applied to the pricing of payment for 1000 banner views. If a CPM banner campaign pays out $6 CPM, it pays $6 per 1000 banner views.
CPC
Cost Per Click is the price for each click on a banner. Very easy to calculate. If 3 clicks equals $0.39, then the (average) CPC is $0.13
Impression
Banner "impressions" is a measurement of the total number of times a banner is displayed, either on a web page or in a separate browser window as a pop-up or pop-under advertisement. Therefore, 1000 impressions means a banner has been displayed 1000 times.
Public Service Ad
Advertisements that are for non-profit and usually promote organizations or funds that help others. This type of ad also makes you zero profit if any visitor on your website clicks a Public Service Ad. (Google likes to display this type of ad sometimes).
Publisher
A person who has a website and uses that website to make some money by using the availible advertising "space" on their site.
Repeat Visitors
A person who visits your website "regularly", by their choice of doing so.
Traffic
Visits to your website. A generic way of saying unique visitors or total page views or hits.