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Competitive Ad Filtering

When it comes to making money online, everyone with a website knows about Google AdSense and affiliate marketing. However, I have seen some bizarre advertising behavior on a few high-traffic blogs that use AdSense in addition to affiliate partners. I’m talking about lack of proper ad filtering through AdSense. Everyone knows to filter out ads from competing websites, but you should also filter out ads from your affiliate partners. I will use this post to give my tips on how to prevent your affiliate partners from displaying AdSense ads on your website through competive ad filtering.

Everytime I sign up for, and get accepted to a new affiliate program through LinkShare.com, Commission Junction.com, etc., I immediately go to my Google AdSense account and add the affiliate partners’ website URL to the competitive ad filter list within AdSense, before adding any of those new affiliate partners links to my website. By doing this, you will prevent your affiliate partners from displaying AdSense ads on your website or blog. If you are monetizing your website/blog with AdSense and affiliate links, it is imperative that you filter out ads through AdSense for your affiliate partners’ website.

Optimizing Adsense To Enhance Affiliate Earnings

The reason for blocking your affiliate partners from displaying Google AdSense ads on your website should be obvious. Just in case it is not obvious, I’ll break it down. As you may, or may not now, when one of your website visitors clicks on one of your affiliate links and makes a purchase, you will either earn a flat fee or percentage-based commission for that sale. If your affiliate partner also advertises their product through Google AdWords, those ads might also show up on your website/blog as AdSense ads, which do not pay much. This is even worse if it’s an AdSense image ad, with the same exact image used for your affiliate link.

You want to avoid having your visitors clicking on an AdSense ad that brings your visitor to the affiliate partners website. You will only be paid a few cents for directing your visitor to that affiliate from AdSense. If that same visitor buys a product from your affiliates website, after arriving there through AdSense, you will only earn the few cents from AdSense and not an affiliate commission, which is most likely substantially more money.

I can’t understand why I see so many website’s and blogs with AdSense ads that also advertise their affiliate partners on the same page. When we consider the fact that AdSense earns almost zero money compared to an affiliate commission, why risk wasting a pay-per-click payout that is less than a pay-per-sale payout?

If you intend to write content related to any of your affiliate partners’ products or services, I strongly suggest that you filter out websites belonging to your affiliate partners in the “competitive ad filter” tab within AdSense. I do this whether I intend to write about an affiliate product/services or not. I’d rather play it safe than sorry. 

Of course, there is always a flip side. If a person clicks your affiliate link and doesn’t buy anything, you earn nothing, but if they click an AS ad and don’t buy anything you’ll still earn something from Google. It’s a catch 22 but I prefer gambling on generating a sale, not just a click.

Product URL Different Than Parent Company URL

Another thing to keep in mind is product website versus manufacturer website. Always make sure that you are blocking any URLs that point to an affiliate product, but also be sure to filter out their corporate website too. A good example of what I mean, would be Photoshop owned by Adobe. It would be safe to filter out photoshop.com and adobe.com. When you filter out websites you can use both the http://www.thetestrun.com and the http://thetestrun.com versions just to be on the safe side.  

Some product branding is so good that we forget that the product name is not the same name as its parent company. Make sure to contact all your affiliate partners, asking them if they use AdWords. If they say yes, ask them which URLs you should block through AdSense’s competitive ad filter. Some affiliate partners let us know what types of ad campaigns they use as soon as they accept you into their affiliate program. If you’re unsure, email them to find out. You may also visit the product pages of these affiliates, and check their “about” or “contact” pages. Most of them will have the name and website address of their parent company in at least one of those areas.

Are you filtering out affiliate partners from AdSense? Have you ever lost a bigger affiliate commision to a PPC click?