If you own a website and you are debating monetizing it with Google Ads, here’s what you need to know:

You probably already know that the way Google Ads (AKA: "Google AdSense")  work is you get a small amount of money every time an ad on your website is clicked. The payment can range from a penny or two, to a quarter or more. If your site has decent traffic this can really add up and you can make $100+ per month. When we used to run Google Ads many, many years ago it equated several hundreds of dollars ($500, $800+) monthly for a single sidebar space featuring a handful of ads. Other website hosts who are running a large quantity of ads make $100+ a day:

Clearly, there is value in monetization. However there is also a downside which is primarily that you are most likely sending your website visitors to competitors because the ads on your site are tailored to fit your content. For example, if you are a clothing store you will be advertising for fellow clothing stores, perhaps offering deals you cannot compete with. Additionally, you have little control over WHICH competitor clothing stores you will be promoting, so you can end up advertising some really sh*tty businesses. Also, some ads are stellar performers that rack up clicks, which is great for you if you want the Google Ad earnings however this also means you are continually sending away your traffic; if you were instead able to retain that traffic, what percentage would convert to sales? Obviously you are going to make more profit selling your products than the couple cents for the Google Ad click... providing you have a sellable product.  

On the other hand if you do not have a sellable product because your product IS monetized through ads, then this is a great choice you should consider.  But regardless of what type of monetization you wish to use, keep in mind the "annoyance level", because, in all honesty, people hate ads.  So the best type of ads are those that don't piss off your viewers.  SearchEngineLand.com dropped a really fantastic graphic showing Ads by Hatred Level:

With that being said, the decision to run ads on your site or avoid ads is something you have to do some serious soul searching over because once you send away potential customers it can be hard, or even impossible, to get them back but if you are looking purely for monetization, then I would strongly encourage you to run Google Ads in addition to Amazon Ads.  

Credits:  Photos provided by Big Happy Profits and SearchEngineLand.com