1. Give a Recommendation.
One of the differences between the AdSense referral program and their normal advertising program is that you can actively promote and encourage readers to click your referral links. This is because you don’t get paid per click but only when the reader meets the required action. So no one is out of pocket if you encourage your readers to click or label the buttons as recommendations. In fact if you do recommend the product (genuinely) you’ll increase your chances of conversion as you’re really pre-selling the product (and all affiliate or CPA programs work best with some pre-selling).
2. Relevancy is Key.
The only reason that AdWords and AdSense referrals work reasonably for me is that my blog is on the topic of making money online. If I were to put them on any of the other blogs I’m involved with the conversion would be terrible. I’d steer clear of the program altogether unless you have readers who would naturally be interested in the topic.
3. Use Your Allowance of Two Referrals a Page.
Google recently changed the rules to allow publishers to use 2 referral links per page instead of the previously allowed single link. I have one text link positioned at the bottom of individual posts and one in my sidebar (for AdSense). I find that the ones at the bottom of posts work best.
4. Use a Pre-Sell page.
One of the problems with the AdSense referrals program is that the text links are difficult to incorporate into a post. They are not html but are a script and you are hampered in changing the wording of how the link appears. Also if you’re already using your two links on the one page (like I am) you can’t put a third link into your post. The way I get around this is to have an AdSense ‘pre-sell’ page. On this page I simply explain what AdSense is, share how it works for me and include a button to sign up for it. I can’t tell you the exact CTR on this page but it’s over 400 times better than the CTR on either of the other links appearing on my blog! Whether this converts to signups I’m unsure as AdSense don’t allow us to track signups on a channel by channel basis (and I’ve only used this pre-sell page for a month now so it’s too early to tell if it leads to readers getting to the threshold at a higher rate than the other buttons).
5. Help Your Readers Meet Thresholds.
Lastly, consider how you might help those who do click through to meet the conversion thresholds.
