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Comment by imaginenore | Hacker News Reader

If you have access to cheap traffic that's not complete garbage, giving it to Amazon is one of the dumbest things you can do.

I really tried AA on a few of my sites, and eventually gave up and switched back to Adsense. I even created a custom ad system which tried different Amazon products, tracked impressions and clicks, which gave me the data on which ads were more likely to be clicked on. I went up from the initial 0.5% CTR to 5% CTR, which I felt really proud of. But then you have to realize that once these people land on Amazon, they have to convert again in order for you to get paid, and the conversion rate is like 1-2%.

So you end up with shit like this: 250 clicks, 4 items ordered, $2.40 earned (straight from the earning report).

Now think how much Adsense would pay you for 250 clicks. I average $0.432 per click (just checked). So $108 is what I'd expect to earn with Google. That's 45 times more than Amazon.

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I run several sites, one of which is mostly gun reviews. I know my audience on that site very well, and I can hand-select Amazon products that will sell.

On some pages, I have ads for things like a P-38 can opener. They're around $3 each or $10 for 10. Something like 5% of my traffic clicks that ad, and 70% buys the product. Because it's so cheap, I make only a couple of pennies per sale... but the number of items sold bumps me from the default 4% commission for the month to 6.5% or more without working for it.

On other pages I might link to a $400 rifle optic, or a $50 gunsmithing book. Because of all those little sales, I make $26 on that optic instead of $16 - it makes a big difference.

I've put Adsense on those pages in the past, and it averages around 10% of the revenue I get from Amazon.

That's interesting. 70% buy rate is tremendous though. I've never heard of anything like that.

I targeted the products to my audience too, and still didn't get above 2%.

It's not a lot of traffic, but it's consistent. More normal is 5-7% for most things.

I do not believe this is a valid comparison. The clicks are not happening on my website, they are happening on Reddit. I am paying for the clicks.

If I were to use Adsense in my experiment, I would've most likely earned between $10-20 from 4,800 pageviews, around $2-3eCPM. By comparison, I earned about $175 with Amazon Associates from 4,800 clicks. As LyndsySimon commented, Adsense would earn only about 10% of my earning potential with Amazon.

That's only because Reddit let you post direct affiliate ads, which they don't anymore. I'm surprised Reddit adops don't do that kind of arbitrage themselves, it's like free money.

It really depends on what you are promoting. Niche, high priced products do well. I have a niche site that earns $80+ per sale averaging 30 sales per month. Adsense on that same site earns less than $200/mo.

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