Comparison between AdSense and Amazon Associates

There is a huge and very significant difference Google AdSense and Amazon Associates, and that difference is that Google AdSense offers various types of advertisements while Amazon Associates only offers one. I will explain further. Google AdSense ads are either pay per click or cost per click (CPC), cost per 1000 impressions (CPM) and I don't know if they have started pay per action. In the first, advertiser pay only when visitors click on the ads, in the second advertisers pay the moment an ad is displayed, and the third, the hardest, advertiser only pay when visitor perform some action such as purchasing the product on offer.

Amazon associates only offers ads on the basis of pay per action, that is, only when visitors purchase for Amazon's offerings. This is obviously harder and I think this is the reason why many bloggers can earn much more from Google AdSense than from Amazon Associates.

In my own case, previously when I was using the 3 column template for my blog, the lower earnings from Amazon Associates may be attributed to the fact that Google AdSense ads were placed in more prominent positions above the fold while Amazon Associates ads were placed in less prominent positions below the fold. Now that I am using the 4 column templates and both Google AdSense ads and Amazon Associates ads were placed above the fold, earnings from AdSense ads still far exceed earnings from Amazon Associates.