What sort of websites make more money from affiliate marketing than AdSense or other ad networks?

I would say the answer to this question lies mainly in two things: amount of traffic and type of traffic. When you're thinking about a site that's basing its revenues on ad networks, then you need to think in terms of CPMs - by definition, traffic in the thousands. Assuming we're not talking about CNN/Techcrunch/Mashable - you need a lot of traffic to make a lot of money from that kind of revenue model. Consider even TechCrunch, I believe their CPM right now is around $20 and they have around 5M visitors - so even when you get to that kind of traffic level, you're still talking about $20 per one THOUSAND people, putting aside the fact they have more than 1 pageview per visitor (they have almost 2). Echoing what was already said here - affiliate-based sites do great when the visitor is in 'buy mode'. That said, sites with little traffic would do better with affiliate offers than ad networks if the site is indeed attracting traffic that can convert to certain offers - not all niches have products you can promote, but literally any site can display ads from networks like AdSense. I've had AdSense sites with 0.03% CTR and ones with 17% CTR - some with avg. CPC of 3c and some with $3. The sites with $3 CPC and 5% CTR would usually do better than affiliate offers ($15 per 100) but if you have an insurance site, for instance, those can convert anywhere from 10% to 80% - I've seen quite a few that convert 60% consistently. That kind of affiliate commissions usually go around $10 CPL ($8-$15) so with 50% conversion, 10 visitors would give you $50 in revenue -> 30 visitors = $150. As you can see it's a numbers game more than anything. It's all about quality/type of traffic and amount of traffic (I'm not discussing cost of traffic which is a factor for choosing a model as well). Ecommerce sites in any part of the rainbow (coupons/store-front/review) do MUCH better with affiliate offers than advertisements in most cases. Niche sites that attract a specific kind of customers - low volume, high quality - also usually generate more money with affiliate offers than advertising. There's a HUGE 'mommy blogger' niche that's doing amazing job at promoting products - some mommy bloggers can push 100 sales a day with the right product/promotion - I heard of larger numbers as well. All that said - don't forget that people who advertise make their own profitability calculations. If a niche site is promoting an offer for a company that's doing well, that company can do its own calculations and strike an advertising deal with him instead - end of the day, it's all about CPA. Affiliate commissions and Ad CPCs are calculated backwards from CPA. I would split test everything - ad networks and affiliate offers.

Affiliate sites usually do best when getting visitors that are "ready to buy". Coupon and deal sites do well since the customer already has in mind what they want and they are just looking for some savings. Loyalty sites do well, because again visitors are in a buying mood. Review sites also do well, because customers are researching purchases. Either they will make a purchase right from a review, or they'll click through and set a cookie and hopefully make a purchase later from that same computer. The best thing to do really for your own site is test and mix it up. Put affiliate links within the content of your site (if you're writing reviews or blog posts), and perhaps some adsense on the borders. Mix it up, and put an affiliate banner in place of the adsense for a while...see which does better after a month.

Per visitor, affiliate sites that target B2B or financial markets tend to make more due to the higher price points on the products. Any affiliate site can make money with tens of thousands of visitors, but most sites don't get that much traffic.  So most are better off focusing on a highly targeted niche and getting more money out of a smaller amount of traffic. Another way to generate more affiliate income is using an in-house affiliate program instead of a network.  A network is essentially a middleman, so they take money that could be going to you.  For example, we have an in-house affiliate program called http://profitpress.com and pay our affiliates $100 per sale.  Since we're in house and don't use an affiliate network, 100% of the money we put into our affiliate program goes directly to our affiliates.  That's what we prefer, that's what our affiliates prefer.

there are a few of approaches to this and no definitive answer unfortunately: Basic first rule: negotiate the best affiliate deal and revenue share - it gives you the greatest opportunity to realise a good return. it also gives you a way to outperform ad network revenue share. Ideally choose affiliate deals with a longer term revenue stream and ownership of audience over once off deals Second, sites with a focused community do better because you know which affiliates will fit their audience segments and how to position them. Tthird, law of large numbers always applies - the greater your number of visitors the better chance of converting. Affiliates can be used in non-advertising space (i.e. as fixed placements) and thus not impact advertising section yields

In my opinion having targeted ads (relevant to the content of your website) is the biggest factor. If your ads/banners are related to the content on your website then the possibility of a conversion increases substantially. Plus, the benefit of being an affiliate over getting adsense on your site is that you control the ads. What I'm trying to say is that you should look at this from an opposite angle - i.e. what would better with my website, adsense or affiliate ads. I hope this helps