Is AdSense Worth It? (& Is It Still Profitable In 2024?) - Commission Academy (2024)

Quick Answer: Yes, AdSense is worth it. It provides an easy way to monetize your website & the ads placed on your pages can actually improve the experience of your website. Read on to find out everything you need to know, including if it’s still profitable & how much you could earn.

Is AdSense worth it? That’s a question we get regularly asked by both new affiliate marketers & experienced affiliate marketers alike, as well as general content creators who are just looking to start monetizing their work.

And when folks ask us if it is worth it, they generally mean does it pay enough to make it worthwhile putting “annoying” ads on your website that could potentially slow it down & annoy your visitors.

However, what people generally don’t realize is that AdSense could actually improve the quality of your website & make your visitors even happier.

We explain how below.

Is AdSense Worth It?

If you’re asking this question, you’ve likely got a website that’s started getting some clicks (such as a blog about your dog) & found yourself looking for ways to monetize it so that you can start earning from your traffic.

And as you’ve likely discovered, there are 2 main ways to monetize a website:

• Display advertising
• Affiliate marketing

AdSense falls into the display advertising category, which means that it places advertisem*nts (such as banner ads or text ads) on your website.

And the good news is that you can do both display advertising & affiliate marketing on the same website.

But typically, people assume that display ads:

• Annoy website visitors
• Look ugly
• Slow down your website

So they hold off from implementing AdSense & ponder if it’s going to be worth it.

However, those assumptions are not necessarily true. You see, AdSense leverages something known as targeted & contextual advertising, which means that it places ads based on your visitor’s interests or the content that they’re currently viewing.

This means that, in reality, these types of adverts can actually add value to your page to the reader because they could connect them with a product or service that they’re actually looking for.

Not only that but if they click on them, you get paid… Even if they don’t happen to purchase anything.

And given how easy it is to add AdSense to a website, AdSense is certainly worth it because it provides such a simple way to start monetizing your content.

In fact, my first-ever earnings online came through AdSense over 10+ years ago & it wasn’t until a few years later that I actually discovered affiliate marketing.

So, in my opinion, AdSense is worth it because:

• It can add value to your page for the reader (helpful ads)
• It’s easy to integrate (easy way to monetize)
• It doesn’t require you to do much (you just focus on creating content)
• It can be used in conjunction with affiliate marketing for extra $$$

However, there is likely another important question that you have floating around in your mind…

Is AdSense Still Profitable In 2024?

Absolutely. AdSense is certainly still profitable in 2024 & whilst we always recommend a combination of both affiliate marketing & AdSense for maximum earnings, there are many people earning a living solely from running AdSense on their websites alone.

Many years ago, before discovering affiliate marketing, I was one of them. And because the targeting of the ads has gotten so much better over the years, AdSense is actually now more profitable than ever.

So if ever you see people claiming that “AdSense is dead” or similar, don’t believe them. It’s not. AdSense is still alive & kicking & still provides a profitable way of monetizing your content.

How Much Does AdSense Pay?

On average, AdSense pays around $10 to $20 per 1,000 views, but there are many different factors that could influence those numbers.

For example, your earnings will depend on things such as:

• Your website category
• Where your visitors are located
• How your ads are set up
• What type of content you publish (video or text)
• Etc…

And because there are so many different variables that could influence your AdSense earnings, we actually created a dedicated in-depth blog post to specifically answer this individual question.

What Are The Downsides of AdSense?

To be honest, there is only really 1 potential “downside”, & that is the fact that AdSense will make your website load a little bit slower.

How much slower your website loads will depend on a few factors, such as:

• Your chosen integration method
• The number of ads you choose to display

But realistically, the amount that AdSense will slow your website down shouldn’t cause any issues because the code is optimized to load as fast as possible.

There are, of course, Google AdSense alternatives that claim to load their ads faster than AdSense.

And with that in mind, it’s worth pointing out that Google AdSense doesn’t necessarily pay the most out of all of the advertising companies available.

This brings me to the next point.

What Pays Better Than Google AdSense?

We’d love to make your life really easy & tell you which specific company pays better than AdSense, but there are a number of companies & which one pays the most will depend on your website category & audience.

So to help you find a company that pays better than Google AdSense, we’ve put together a full of list of Google Adsense alternatives.

However, it’s worth pointing out that the companies that pay more may not necessarily result in you earning more overall.

This is because even though they may pay more per click or per view, their targeting may not be as good as AdSense’s.

Also, some networks may require more difficult integration processes & may slow your site down significantly in comparison to AdSense.

So to find a company that truly pays better than Google Adsense, you will need to do some trial & error. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

You will need to run ads from different networks, test your site speed, track your earnings (ideally over 3 months) & determine an overall winner.

The Bottom Line

In our opinion, AdSense is worth it. It may not be the highest-paying or fastest-loading, but it provides a very easy way to monetize & it’s from a reputable company that you can trust.

At the very least, AdSense is a great starting point & as mentioned in the previous section, you can always try some other networks from our list of AdSense alternatives & determine, through trial & error, what works best.

And don’t forget, AdSense is not the only way to monetize. Alongside AdSense (or any display advertising) you should always look to do affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing has the potential to turn you into a millionaire & through our free affiliate marketing training course, you can learn how to get started.

Our course could see you going from a newbie to an affiliate marketing superstar in just 15 days, so if you haven’t yet done so, be sure to sign up for our free training before you leave.

But overall, we hope that this blog post answered your questions & if you have any additional comments, feel free to leave them below.