Displaying Advertisements and doing Affiliate Marketing are the methods of earning online. We can use either of them or both of them with our website. Both of them have some pros and cons, so cannot say exactly which the best is. Actually it depends on many things related to the online content you have. Let us first understand what they are and how do they work.
Advertisement
If you have a website with some genuine content and a good amount of page views every day, you can choose one of the advertising options to monetize your website. There are various companies offering to sell their ads on your website. Go through the Terms and Conditions and see which one suits to your website. For example, if you apply for Google AdSense Ad Program, you can get the code for displaying the ads on your website and then paste it in your website code, where you want the ads to be displayed. Companies which want to advertise their products contact these ad selling companies and pay to them for selling their ads. Then, when we display the ads on our website, a part of that payment is shared with us. The percentage of part varies among various different ad programs.
There are various types of ads and ad techniques like CPM (Cost Per Impression), CPA (Cost Per Action), RPM (Revenue Per Thousand Impressions) and many more.
There are some good things about advertising programs like
- There are many techniques and methods the advertiser pays you, so more or less, you earn on a daily basis.
- You are paid for ad impressions also.
- Ads are contextual so are more likely to be clicked.
- Ads generate a handsome income if your site is quite popular.
There are some not so good things as well with these advertising programs:
- You have to qualify for the ad program in many cases, means your website should have some minimum requirements like number of page views.
- If you opt for too many ad programs, it can badly effect the reputation of your website.
- There are so many terms and conditions you have to follow, if your website violates any of them anytime, your participation will be cancelled.
- The value of Ads displayed depends on various things like the country, demography, your content etc. so you may not earn a good amount all the times.
Affiliate Marketing
When you sign up directly with the product seller companies to sell their products by displaying them on your website, this is called affiliate marketing. Just go to an Affiliate Marketing Program website and sign up for the Affiliate Program. They will give you a code, which you can add to your website and can display the advertisement for their product. Affiliate Programs pay you a fix commission for each of their sale generated through your website. The percentage amount of commission varies with the type of products but it is fixed with a particular product.
There are some good things about affiliate marketing programs like:
- You are directly displaying the product listings on your website, and if a sale is generated, you are paid a fixed commission for that. So if you are able to attract a good traffic you may earn very good income from the Affiliate Program.
- The sign up process is very easy and the terms and conditions are not so hard like some of the advertising programs.
- You can use the affiliate programs with Advertisement Program also.
- You know in advance how much you can earn since the commission rates are displayed with each type of product.
There are some not so good things as well with these advertising programs:
- Your income depends on a sale, which may not happen every day, so you don’t earn every day.
Conclusion: Selling Advertisements and Affiliate Marketing, both are tools for earning online. Depending on your website type you can choose to use any of them and if you use both, that is the best.