Product placement on your site means you have the potential to make money but here is a KEYWORD to look for when signing up for a program to predict just how bad they are going to screw you.
Does your Ad Company call you an AFFILIATE?
If they do you have a very high chance of getting screwed when its time for them to cut you a check.
Another great term is Partner but either way you look at it Partner or Affiliate in this sense means you are selling the product of the company whos ads are on your site….. NOT that you are a partner with the advertising agent who is getting paid no matter if sales go through or not.
This is pretty crappy but often you endup resorting to this bull shit just to fill places on your site.
Most often if you are not working with an agency to get these ads you will pick them up directly from a businesses website. Affiliate / Partner programs run by large companies are just another way for them to get linkbacks and face time. And because they almost never result in payouts by the company they are no more costly then the time to setup a banner page on their site and offer code for insertion.
Lets be totally honest here.
You are never going to make any money if the ads on your site require purchases by your visitors.
It doesn’t matter if you are selling flowers, webspace or solid gold coins for a buck a piece.
If a multi Billion or Million dollar company isn’t willing to pay you a couple pennies per click or view they are not going to give you $75 when someone signs up for a $5 account or makes a $15 purchase.
So are these ads just useless?
Pretty much but they do have one use.
Layout & Placement
If you are laying out your site and you signup for a few of these affiliate programs use the banners to attract customers. Use them as place holders for ads that you can sell yourself.
LinkBacks
Intermix your own ads for trade with friendly sites to build linkbacks. Displaying an ad for free that gives you a decent linkback could be worth more then a never paying affiliate ad.
Convert the ads as fast as you can to paying ones.
Look for companies that pay per click.
Size Matters
Remember that just because a large website uses an ad banner service it does not mean you will have the same deal.
If you are a webmaster of a site that gets a million page views a day and you signup with a service you will get a better deal that smaller sites will never have access to.
They may even completely change the terms from Affiliate Pay on Sale deal to a Pay Per Click or View in which case the offering is completely different then what is publicly offered.
You have to remember that an ad agency gets a lot of public word of mouth when they can get ads on a big site. And that will attract all the little guys who they never endup paying.
Final Note
Don’t worry about it. Test services that you believe have at least some quality or can be trusted.
If your time with them does not result in profits walk away and find someone else.
Also don’t abuse your visitors with ads that don’t pay.
Full page takeovers or popups / unders or hoverfromhell links that make your site less enjoyable while at the same time never result in payouts are just hurting you.
