Adsense arbitrage in a nutshell is the business model where you buy cheap traffic from Google or any PPC search engines, drive traffic to your niche content site, get adsense to serve more expensive ads on your site, and at the end of the day, make more than you spend.
There are rumors that this model is long dead and does not work anymore. Yes and no. Basically, for crappy MAF (made for Adsense) sites that are merely directories and do not contribute unique content got slapped in 2006. To me, that’s actually a good thing. It weeded out useless sites with little or no content. At the same time, sites that are legitimately good and does arbitrage correctly, can and are still making money.
After first hearing about this interesting business model in early 2007, I started studying it and immediately started testing campaign after campaigns. As expected, it took many failed campaigns and several months before I learned enough to start making a small yet consistent profit.
Yes, some niches are simply too competitive, pays too little to matter, or has too little traffic, period. But I’ve learned that if you fully master the process, you can do well in just about any niche that has just a decent amount of traffic.
This is the first time I’ve realized that something so simple in concept can have so much intricate details and learning curve involved. I came so close to giving up on it before I started to figure it out. I’m so glad that I didn’t quit!
Currently, with just one niche, which I can’t and won’t state for obvious reasons, I’m netting about $500 a month. One of the reasons I failed initially was because I tried to do a half-assed job in too many markets/niches that I never fully mastered what makes it work or not work.
I would encourage everyone to start by picking one market, and learn everything you can about this business, before moving on to some other niche/market. The power of focus is simply amazing.
Another great thing about the Adsense arbitrage business is that it forces you to work on your PPC skills. FAST! Because the results are immediate, and it’s much quicker to get people to click on an ad on your site than to get someone to buy through an affiliate link, the Adsense arbitrage business allows you to get a handle of your PPC skills (getting high CTR, low bid prices, ad writing, etc.) very quickly. Even if you do not make a dime and quit, you will have come out of it a better PPC marketer.
Now, having acquired the skills necessary to do this business, I’ve found a great way to integrate this into my affiliate business. This tip is worth gold to me. Basically, knowing that it may take up to several weeks before Google figures out that you have a good ad with good proven CTR, I thought to myself one day, why not start all affiliate marketing PPC campaigns with arbitrage landing pages exclusively? Whether the campaigns make money or not, serving adsense ads will at least cover part of your PPC expenses while you establish your CTR history to Google, which will bring down the cost of your bid prices (because Google rewards high CTR ads with lower ad costs).
By the time 3-4 weeks have gone by, you can then decide if you want to change your landing page to promote the affiliate product. Perhaps your arbitrage business is going well, and you would opt to continue serving the Adsense ads. Or you can do a combination of both. I have a niche where I make regular profits from arbitraging, and at the same time some of the traffic convert into affiliate sales too. You can’t go wrong with that. I look at it this way. If they are going to leave your site anyway, might as well have them click on your Adsense ad to exit instead of doing nothing for you. Of course with testing you would find out how to structure your site for the best affiliate sales conversion as well as capturing the non-buyers into Adsense clicks.
Of course there are tons details to arbitraging which I do not have the time nor space to go into here, but I can share with you the one and only Adsense arbitrage system I studied which I thought was just incredible and powerful. The system is called Adsense Arbitrage Vodoo, by George Katsoudas. I highly recommend it if you are new to this business and want all the insiders secrets. George’s system has got it all. This system is packed with little known, yet powerful strategies that simply by having it you’d have an unfair advantage. Now who doesn’t want that?
Happy arbitraging!
