Should you put ads on affiliate marketing sites (or email marketing sites)?

Why or why are there ads on Fat Stacks?

That question falls under the Jeopardy category of “stupid questions for $500 Alex”.

Answer: Money.

I suspect you knew the answer. It was a rhetorical question.

More specifically, it’s easy money.

Passive income.

How much do they earn?

Currently, the ads earn $500 to $600 per month.

Not life-changing money.

But here’s the thing.

Email sign up rates are the same.

Course sales continue to climb.

Affiliate revenue climbs.

In other words, ads on the site don’t hurt overall revenue, but increased it.

If they did hurt revenue, they’d be history.

Instead, it’s another $500 in my pocket.

That’s $6K per year.

For doing nothing.

Too many folks who don’t know better say “don’t use ads”.

Don’t listen to them.

Test it.

Fat Stacks is a type of site most folks would never consider putting ads on… just because they’ve been told it’s not good.

I disagree.

My numbers prove it.

What about user experience?

Sure, ads are a little annoying.

But the numbers don’t lie.

Visitors still do what I want them to do – sign up to the newsletter, click affiliate links, etc.

Are you not putting ads on your site because somebody wrote somewhere that ads are bad?

Don’t listen to them.

Test it.

It might turn out that ads do hurt your overall revenue.

In that case, turn them off.

I suspect most sites without ads could benefit from ads revenue-wise.

I’ve had many Fat Stacks readers tell me that after reading my “monetize with ads” message that putting ads on their “affiliate sites” was a game-changer.

Affiliate revenue remained the same.

Ads, in many cases, doubled overall revenue.

It’s not like you have to work for that revenue.

I could earn more pushing consulting or some time-intensive service.

But that’s hard work.

Ads are arguably the most perfect revenue stream ever invented.

It’s not like I have to create the ads.

Affiliate offers often require work – pretty product boxes, banner ads, links, testing, etc. I’m not saying affiliate marketing is bad. I’m just saying it’s often a bit more work than putting ads on a site.

Should you put ads on affiliate and email marketing sites?

I think more often than not you’ll benefit financially with display ads on your site.

Fat stacks is all about the email newsletter.  Yet, when I put ads on Fat Stacks, email sign ups remained the same.  All that happened is I put another $15 to $20 per day in my pocket.  That pays for lunch.

I’ve heard from many Fat Stacks readers that when they put ads on their affiliate sites, affiliate revenue remained the same while the ads in many cases, doubled total revenue.

At the very least test it

I think any site with traffic should at least test ads.

You never know and it costs you nothing except a bit of time.

It’s one of those tasks that could make a huge difference.

I got into display ads by accident. I used to publish only affiliate sites.  One such site wasn’t generating commissions so with nothing to lose I slapped up some AdSense ads. Those suckers started earning in seconds (I had decent traffic).

I switched from an affiliate focus to display ads and never looked back.  Last month, that site generated well over $40,000 in display ad revenue and less than $10K in affiliate revenue.

Worst-case scenario – restrict ads

Most affiliate sites these days have quite a bit of info content that doesn’t drive affiliate commissions. At the very least put ads on these pages.  If you have a high-earning affiliate page, simply turn ads off those pages.

This is especially the case of Amazon affiliate sites where the commissions are a low percentage.

If you have a high-traffic site promoting website hosting, credit cards or some other insanely lucrative offer, ads aren’t worth it on the converting pages.  Even I wouldn’t put ads on those pages.  But everything else is fair game.

Today’s ad networks earn ridiculous amounts of money

The reason more and more affiliate marketers are putting ads on their sites is because there are ad networks that earn a ton of money per 1,000 visitors.  $15 to $25 RPM isn’t out of the question in many niches.  That’s some serious money.

Speaking of ad networks, where should you get ads for your site to make it worth it?

Where should you get ads for your site?

There’s AdSense but you can do better.

If under 100K monthly visitors, use Ezoic (read my Ezoic review here).

If you have AdSense, split test AdSense with Ezoic.

If you have 100K+ monthly visitors, apply to AdThrive.  I hear Mediavine is good too.

If accepted, try them out. AdThrive is picky. I was rejected a few years ago. Fortunately, I was accepted in 2020. Accordingly, it’s now the network I’m using. It’s good. Totally hands-free. AdThrive does everything for you.

But if not accepted into AdThrive, Ezoic is great. I used them quite a bit with good results over the years.

There are many other ad networks.

I just tell you the ones I like best and got me good results.

The important thing is if you aren’t using ads on your site, it could be costing you a fortune.

I didn’t use ads for years. I focused on affiliate offers.

Then I had a site hit 500 daily visitors loaded with affiliate offers that hadn’t earned a cent.

I slapped some AdSense on it and started making decent money instantly.

That was one of my biggest “aha” moments in this biz.

I’ve been an “ad guy” ever since.