Publisher Programs that worked for me, might work for you too…
I have tried many affiliate programs over the years, some worked fine and some didn’t. I would like to mention here the ones that worth mentioning. The performance of the publisher programs also differ from one blog to another, so the programs that didn’t work for me might just work fine for you and vice versa.
So please do not take this list as a proven guide, it’s merely a list of what works on AdesBlog.
Publisher/Affiliage Programs that worked
These affiliate programs did work for me, some from the first trial and some after persistent marketing. Sometimes if you know it will work but it needs a time, then you have to be persistent on that. Gut feeling does work and apparently many CEOs make important non-structured decisions by gut feeling.
- LinkWorth - I have already blogged about it here. It worked from the first trial and now it’s one of my major income contributors.
- Text-Link-Ads - TLA works very well too on my blog, currently all 10 links are sold out. TLA’s Post-Level-Links are working quite okay too. TLA’s referral program is a good income generator as well, I have blogged about it here.
- Kontera - Kontera didn’t work very well in the beginning, but now it’s getting better. It’s because it needs time to spider your blog so that it can show more targeted ads. I still believe Kontera will be one of the affiliate programs that I will use for some time.
- ShutterStock - It’s a slow money generator, but since I don’t have to do anything it’s considered as good as the other programs. Here I make money purely on my referred users’ sales.
- Google AdSense - It’s a dying breed, but it does make some money. I used to rely a lot on Google AdSense before when it used to generate a lot more than now, but now it became just another affiliate program - that is easy to apply and implement.
Publisher/Affiliate Programs that didn’t work
Here is the list of publisher programs that for some reason didn’t work for me. I will try to give the reasons for each whenever I can:
- Chitika - I know many people make a lot of money with Chitika, but Chitika just didn’t work for me. I guess it works better on the hardware/digital camera related blogs. Because Chitika gives you a share of the sale whenever you refer one. Here on my blog, the clicks on the Chitika ads just generated few dollars a month.
- ReviewMe - People like JohnChow make thousands of dollars from ReviewMe, but since I do not do paid reviews, so far ReviewMe has not generated any income ;) Maybe in the future I will use it. Currently ReviewMe has set $150/review for my blog. Would you advertise for this price?
- Nuffnang - It didn’t perform well on my blog. Moreover it had lots of performance problems.
- Advertlets - It didn’t perform well either, tested for four full months and earned only about $13.00.
Other programs worthy of mention are SitePoint Affiliate Program, and Bla.st Affiliate Program. These two programs do work, but it will depend on your target audience and how good you will promote their products and services.
Stats for this blog
Alexa stats for this blog is here, but since Alexa stats can be easily manipulated, I am attaching a 
summary screenshot from my own internal statistics script. This will give you a better idea and perspective on these publisher programs’ performance on a blog like mine.
Thanks for Robert for bringing this up, it’s true that traffic difference can make a huge impact on any publisher program performance. If you have a very high traffic blog, you can even make money with publisher programs that usually do not perform well on average blogs.
Hope it helps.
Related Posts- Publisher Programs that I received in my email
- Rubicon - one stop publisher program center
- What publisher program organizers should know
- Photrade - share photos, get paid
- Yahoo adds RSS Advertising
By Robert on Aug 8, 2007
Forgive me if you’ve published this before (I’m a new reader and gotten through all of your posts yet :)), but how much traffic do you get? I think this helps others who read about how XYZ worked for you and by how much. JohnChow for example currently gets in the 310k pageview range, so we can kind of work out the traffic to income ratio for his different affiliate programs.
Just curious. BTW, thanks for the tips on the screenshot takers. been looking for a good one!
By Ades on Aug 8, 2007
Welcome Robert. I have updated the post with stats details.
By Robert on Aug 8, 2007
Thank YOU! One of the things that helps in knowing traffic is that some affiliates only take blogs with a high traffic and/or Alexa rankings. TLA and Kontera comes to mind here. Naturally, those are generally the biggest income producers :)
I look forward to reading more of your work.
By Matt on Aug 8, 2007
Ades, I’d pay $150 for a review from your site. ;)
By Ades on Aug 8, 2007
Sure you say that after you have got a free review from me already! ;)
By Matt on Aug 8, 2007
HAA!! Well, I was actually referring to buying them on behalf of my clients. I’ve looked for your site when launching some recent LinkPost campaigns only to find out that you don’t offer them….but if you did, I would’ve bought, my friend!
By redmaniatic on Aug 8, 2007
it’s very good!
By Ades on Aug 9, 2007
Matt, if I were to use Paid Reviews in the future, I will definitely check out your LinkPost too.
By David Lithman on Aug 9, 2007
I need to give Linkworth a try. I didn’t realize it could be a top income source. Thanks!
By Doug Perks on Aug 9, 2007
I see the value in Linkworth,and see less help from other sources. I see myslef looking for a change. Thanks for the article.
By Zigire on Aug 10, 2007
I can recommend LinkWorth too. Text-Link-Ads did not work at all for me (on the same site) - I’m guessing that was an error due to their software though.
Don’t even get me started on Chitika, pah.
By tazaspice on Sep 24, 2007
Have you tried CJ? Your thoughts please?
By Ades on Sep 24, 2007
I had tried CJ very early on, in 2001 or 2002, i did make money but it was difficult to promote different products at the same time. so i abandoned it.
By Pat on Oct 6, 2007
Your blog is just full of really, really, really useful info! And all well-written too. Thank you! Will be back often.
By Ades on Oct 6, 2007
Thanks Pat, appreciate it. See you around then…
By Lorna on Oct 9, 2007
I’ve been planning on putting up some non-AdSense paid links in my site, so I’m glad you shared this. I’ve been eyes publisher programs, and other than 5xmom’s and Sabahan.com’s web sites, this is another useful info for me for evaluation. I agree that AdSense doesn’t work on my blog, most probably because mine is a personal site.
By Ginn Wei on Oct 14, 2007
Thanks for the useful information. I’m in the middle of searching for good publisher programs. Although my site has only about 180 unique visitors daily, I’m quite contented considering it’s less than 3 weeks old.
By bizon on Oct 19, 2007
Hi..ades…
i have join to kontera too. But, i’m confuse how to add another blog to our account. I mean one account for several blog like google adsense.
Would u help me …thanks
By Ades on Oct 20, 2007
I think you need to contact the support team for that bizon. Because from the control panel, you cannot do much.
By Voice Of Dingchao on Nov 9, 2007
Reviewme has accepted my blog Laptops. And now they offer me 3 opportunities. Thanks for reviewme.
By bizon on Nov 26, 2007
Hi ades…i just asking you? do you belief what Xpango.com offer? is it a spam?
Thnaks for answering
By Ades on Nov 27, 2007
I think it’s not spam, but it requires you to collect credits. And i am sure, it’s not that easy to collect enough credits for a wii or phone.
By Joey on Dec 14, 2007
Thank you all those links. I am a new blogger myself and I’m looking for ways to earn a living online. These are certainly VERY helpful!
By Webmaster on Feb 29, 2008
Adsense, TLA & direct/private links sales are my main income source. Chitika & Adbrite did’t work for me :(
By Eva White on Jun 23, 2008
Cool List. thanks for all the links. I have some idea about a few but there are new ones here as well.