Unlike Joel Comm, I'm not a Google Adsense guru. I've never tried to become an Adsense guru, as I've always believed that earning a percentage of product sales as an affiliate was preferable to earning a percentage of a click on an Adsense ad. Too, I was worried that sending visitors away from the site through Adsense would decimate my product sales as an affiliate. Lastly, I didn't want to eat up too much site real estate by displaying a bunch of obvious ads.
Well, my stance has changed completely. During December, my Adsense earnings increased by a whopping 512% over the previous month. As you will see in the screenshots included, November's earnings were $292.98 while December was $1500.06. Page impressions, Clicks, Page CTR, and Page eCPM all increased as well.
The increase is particularly remarkable from the standpoint that I did not set out to increase my Adsense earnings. As a matter of fact…
- As part of a traffic quality test, I actually suspended a pay per click campaign that had been delivering 2000 – 2500 clicks per day to Sage-Hearts.com.
- I also removed the Adsense ads displayed at the top of the pages at Sage-Hearts.com.
- Product sales during the period actually increased as well.
So why did the earnings increase so much?
Well, I simply sent a few more newsletters to my online dating newsletter subscriber list than usual!
Each newsletter contained links to one or more blog posts that were of interest to my visitors but that did not promote a product. After perusing the article, readers would then move through the site via the standard navigation to view product offers, or leave the site via the ads. I was making money either way!
By displaying only one unit of Adsense ads, I was also earning more per click as Adsense ad values decline with each subsequent placement.
Lessons learned… The beauty of using Adsense to monetize your site – or a particular portion of your site – is that it should free you from the compulsion to promote a product every time you send a newsletter.
Furthermore, when your newsletter readers don't feel that they are being ‘pitched to' each time they hear from you; they'll trust you more, stay on your list longer and ultimately you will stand a better chance of making that sale when you do promote a product.
As the old saying goes – The money is in the list. Build it big (with Aweber) and then make the most of it through diversified monetization channels.
Now that makes sense! Adsense.
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