7 replies to this topic

[blue]

I sell widgets on a site and have articles posted that interest my site visitors. The articles have nothing to do with my widgets but people who buy my widgets are usually interested in these topics. I wont to put adsense on all my article pages. My question is, will this lower my conversion rate for my products i am trying to sell on my site because people are leaving my web site? Has anybody experimented with this on their site?

[Jill]

That's one of those things you're going to have to just try and see. It's easy enough to put on and take off, so do some tests, and then come back and let us know your findings!

[SearchRank]

We actually had a pretty interesting discussion on this last week where Scottie said:

Adsense on a commercial site simply drives traffic to competitors. Unless you block all your competitors... then you are left with public service ads or only remotely relevant ads that aren't useful. Not very good revenue.

It always makes me shake my head when I see a commercial site with Adsense on it; it does make me think they aren't able to make sales and are instead supplementing their income with ads.

I tend to agree with that statement. If you sell a product but then have AdSense, you risk losing the sale.

[Randy]

I tend to agree with Scottie's reasoning as well.

But on the other hand, if the adsense is only going on the article pages and if visitors who are interested in those are not interested in what you sell, there is at least the possibility of generating an additional income where there would have been none without the Adsense.

[Jill]

Like I said, the only way to know is to test!

[bkernst]

I have recently started experimenting with Adsense on a commercial site that does renting, with nobody in the country actually selling those items, since they are all imported.

Since I have some good rankings on various SEs, my site gets found overseas where the products are actually made and sold. For me that means that the local population discovers they cannot afford to buy from overseas and have to rent through my site, and the people overseas can find out where to buy.

[Scottie]

Now that makes sense!

What I don't understand is sites trying to sell electronics... that have Adsense with ads that say "Lowest prices on electronics" ... yeah, people will click and you'll get your $.25, but you just missed selling something with (we'll assume) more profit than $.25.

[BobetteKyle]

What I don't understand is sites trying to sell electronics... that have Adsense with ads that say "Lowest prices on electronics" ... yeah, people will click and you'll get your $.25, but you just missed selling something with (we'll assume) more profit than $.25.

Maybe because electronics is a category where people do a lot of research before they buy, then come back later to purchase. If most people are going to check out those other sites anyway, why not get some incremental revenue from those visitors whe are still in the research phase? They aren't going to purchase anything yet, anyway.

The ones who are ready to buy aren't going to be pulled away by the ads because they've already made up their minds. And, if a lot of researchers never come back (because another site is better), they were already losing visitors to the other site anyway, so they'd still be better off.

My guess is the total revenue is better for some sites by having both product sales and AdSense revenues.