Advertising or affiliation: what type of monetization should you choose for your website?
Monetizing a website is always a challenge: you need to strike a balance between the revenue generated and the user experience. There are several ways of doing this, but two stand out: display advertising and affiliation. How do you choose between the two? Here are some answers.
What are the differences between advertising and affiliation?
If you're unfamiliar with these monetization methods, the following explanations will help. Advertising and affiliation are two completely different approaches to monetizing your audience:
- Advertising: Advertisements are displayed directly on your pages in the form of banners, videos and sometimes links. Advertisers pay according to the number of displays (CPM), clicks (CPC) or acquisitions (lead).
- Affiliation: This method is integrated directly into the content of your site and aims to direct users to products or services for purchase. This can be done via in-text links, action buttons (CTAs), banners, and widgets such as price tables and maps. Remuneration is generally based on a percentage of sales (CPA). Sometimes, it can also be per click (CPC) or per lead.
The big difference between affiliation and display advertising lies in the control that affiliation offers publishers over what they offer their audience. Advertising is generally managed by external agencies (such as Google Adsense, the market leader), which prevents publishers from having precise control over what is displayed on their website.
Affiliation, on the other hand, enables you to promote the products or services of your choice. If they correspond to the expectations of the audience visiting the website, the return on investment from affiliation can be very good. It's not uncommon to see sites monetized entirely by affiliation, such as those specializing in good deals, like Voyages Pirates.
How do you know whether it's better to turn to advertising or affiliation?
For some media, the solution is obvious (especially those dedicated to advice on buying products and services), but the question is more complex for general media. It's difficult to give a general answer: everything depends on the medium, the audience, the time available to learn about affiliation, and the human and technical resources available. Perhaps the best strategy is to test. But beware: some periods are less profitable than others.
For example, you shouldn't compare an advertising test carried out in August with an affiliate test during Black Friday. Pay close attention to the conditions under which you carry out your tests. Eventually, you'll be able to determine whether it's better to turn to affiliation or display advertising.
What if we tried displaying advertising alongside affiliation?
A third solution seems to be the obvious one: monetize your site with advertising and affiliation simultaneously. At first glance, this might seem like a good idea for increasing revenue... However, the reality is different: affiliate performance decreases sharply when the site displays advertising. Vincent Alzieu explains this perfectly in his article on the impact of display advertising on affiliation. The conclusion is edifying: the number of clicks is halved in the presence of display ads! Worse still, site loading speed is severely impacted, with loading times more than doubling. Bottom line: you could earn less by combining display advertising with affiliation.
Of course, every website is different, and one monetization method may work for one and not for another. Nevertheless, if your priority is affiliation, it seems preferable to do without ads. If that's not possible, reduce them to the bare minimum and study their impact.
Key points to remember
- Advertising is displayed in the form of banners, videos and links, while affiliation is integrated into content to direct users to products or services.
- Advertising is managed automatically by external agencies, offering less control over the content displayed, while affiliation gives the publisher total control over the products or services promoted.
- The best strategy is to test both methods, taking into account the time of year and the specific characteristics of the audience.
- Combining advertising and affiliation can reduce affiliation performance, notably by reducing the number of clicks and impacting site loading speed.
Choosing between advertising and affiliation to monetize your site depends on many factors, including media type, audience and available resources. Although combining the two methods may seem attractive, it can lead to a drop in affiliate performance. It's crucial to test each method individually and to pay attention to the test conditions to determine the most effective strategy for your site.
