I have one site for antiques and collectibles so I’m “forced” to promote products from Ebay’s EPN. Included in that are two automobile sites and a motorcycle site so Ebay Motors via EPN is in the mix. (3)

Overall, I do very well with Adsense across all sites, you should blend them in and optimize similar to Googles recommendations but experiment.

EPN is really the pits, I’ve been on again off again. The now have a quality control algorithm that rates your clicks and their quality. I’ve gone from 25-cents per click to 2-cents and I have winning bids varying from $2 to $500 each day.

I’m a math person and I have no clue how Ebay defines a quality click. I send 55-100 clicks per day with 5-25 bids per day and about 3-8 winning bids per day for the varying amounts of gross revenue sold.

I have always like Amazon but over many years I have yet to sell very much. This year I implemented a huge model consisting of 4 sites for fly rods, fly reels, running shoes and walking shoes with reviews, general guides and topics with revolving carousel for each brand and model of product carefully placed under each review. Prices vary from low to high and each widget was individually built to be product specific. (4)

Six-months, several hundred clicks to Amazon and not one sale. However, I wrote a blog post and including a product link to a book and the person who clicked purchase that book and two others. Imagine that, a random link.

On the blog I have a favorites widget of books in one sidebar carefully blending into the background and an MP3 widget where you can click on and play the song and go further to Amazon to purchase.

I don’t want this comment to appear negative, I’m simply giving you a real live example from someone who has done this for some time.

CJ; Google Affiliates and a few other straight affiliate sites have not been winners.

In-text links – Kontera (NO) Infolinks (NO) Vibrant (YES) and it’s making some nice spending money across my sites.

My top 4:

Adsense
Vibrant
Ebay EPN
Amazon???

Experiment, be patient, experiment, be patient. With Ebay I’m only hoping over one full year the EPC improves. Sites work best if your writing about products and have something to sell, even if it’s for someone else.

Now, back to that SEO! It really comes down to traffic and original content, then place nicely formatted ads.

P.S. Amazon ads can be formatted neatly to appear well in a sites theme so I would disagree they are old looking. I never use borders, I match the background to my site(s) and I match titles and links to the site text similar to formatting Google Adsense.

I’ve had great luck starting out with AdSense. I wasn’t even admitted to WidgetBucks and finally had to contact them 2 weeks after I applied to find out:

“Recently, Mpire Inc. and the Widgetbucks Network underwent an advanced analytical study on how to streamline our business. This study resulted in a strategic decision for the business that will ultimately limit the number of publishers we will be working with for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, while we have appreciated working with you, we have made the decision to move forward without using your publication at this time.

We appreciate your understanding, and it has truly been a pleasure working with you. We wish you the best of luck in the future.”

CommissionJunction didn’t seem to do a whole lot for me. I tried it a while ago though because I wanted to recommend NewEgg as a related vendor. Eventually I called it quits because I never earned a dime from them.

Amazon has worked as a good supplementary revenue source. Whenever I do link to a product or do a review, I link through the Amazon Associate program for the chance to earn 4%. It’s not enough to rely on, but for a “might as well” chance it’s been pretty productive.

I’ve also tried AdBrite and Pubmatic. My results would be that too much management was required with same or worse results than just Google AdSense alone.