pay_per_click_ratesIt may sound strange, but building a successful affiliate business is actually about more than monetizing your site from affiliate offers.

Another essential technique used by most affiliates, albeit one that is far less talked about, is the use of PPC advertising on their sites to supplement any affiliate income, but finding topics with good pay per click rates isn’t always easy.

First I’ll address why you might want to include PPC ads on your site, and then I’ll show you how to find topics with the best rates.

Why Use PPC On Your Site

Affiliate marketers are soundly split into two camps on this issue. There are those who think that incorporating PPC ads into their site distracts the user from the main content and decreases the rate at which they click through to purchase a product.

Others view it as a strong secondary monetization opportunity.

I’m firmly in the latter camp. Over the years I’ve done a lot of page layout testing around PPC ads, and came to realize that both arguments have merit. PPC ads can decrease conversion rates, but I’ve found that this only happens if the ad is placed on the same page as the affiliate link.

That said, the overwhelming majority of my posts do not contain affiliate links, and I’ve found I can get around an extra $10 revenue per thousand visitors from ad placement.

Of course the right answer for you will depend on your niche and reader base, but I encourage you to test some ads to try them out.

Finding High Pay Per Click Rates

If you’re going to include PPC ads, you need to find the best rates.

It’s important to note that the major networks, like Google, use complex user data when displaying ads, so even though your site might focus on a single, high-rate niche, there’s no guarantee that the ads users will see will be paying those rates. I get $0.01 clicks all the time, and it’s common to get a click that only nets you a penny and then a click that nets you a few dollars. Go figure.

The best you can do is to hedge your bets. If you’re operating in a high-rate niche, it’s likely that your readers will have previously searched for other items within that niche, which means that Google is more likely to display the high price ads to them. If not, you may be stuck with the lower click prices anyway.

Digging Up The High Value Niche

For the above reason, you find high rate clicks by looking at overall niche data, not specific keywords. This is the opposite of what you might be used to as a content marketer, but that’s ok.

The best way to get the data for free is to sign up for an Adwords (yes, Adwords, not Adsense) and use the planning tool as if you were going to place an ad yourself. Look at what the bid rates are for click placement within your niche, and this will give you a good sense of what bid price you might expect when a user visits your site.

Finding good pay per click rates is a secondary, but important aspect to earn money through internet marketing, so I recommend you test it out on your site.

If you’re just getting started with affiliate marketing, you should click here to learn more about picking a profitable affiliate niche.