Google AdSense Arbitrage: Is it worth it?

Blog
January 23, 2024 | by Aleesha Jacob
google-adsense-arbitrage

Did you know that global ad spend is predicted to cross half a billion dollars this year? In all seriousness, that’s a lot of money.

Publishers need to keep up with the latest programmatic trends & work on growing their pageviews to scale their ad impressions. The market is ever-changing and it’s important you stay on top of the latest ideas.

Organic traffic is a great source of traffic but only if your website has been around for some time, is ranked highly in search engines, and has enough content to support the search engines. So how do you bring targeted visitors to a newly created blog or website? Simply by building links through digital arbitration and generating relevant content, & paying to bring in some traffic. That’s when AdSense arbitrage comes in handy.

With the right approach and strategy, you can drive traffic from other sources (paid traffic) to your site and make money. How does it work? I’m glad you asked.

This blog post breaks down everything you need to know about Google AdSense Arbitrage.

What is AdSense Arbitrage?

AdSense arbitrage involves publishers buying traffic through paid ads. This can be done through social media platforms such as Facebook or Reddit, where you buy traffic from those platforms’ advertising APIs or dashboard; or it can be done with other online advertising networks that allow for low-cost paid traffic such as Google’s search ads, Bing Ads, and more.

The main goal is to boost the CTR (click-through rate) on their site’s AdSense ads which help scale their ad earnings as well. In order to break even or profit, publishers’ AdSense earnings needs to be more than what they are chipping in while buying traffic.

This takes much skill and a great deal of research into the paid channels you want to drive traffic through, but once you get a handle on how it works and where you should invest your money in, there are several different ways you can pull profit out of it.

If you want more information about how AdSense arbitrage works or whether it’s something you should try out with your own site, keep reading!

Google AdSense Arbitrage: Is it worth it? MonitizeMore

How does AdSense Arbitrage Work?

The process of AdSense arbitrage begins by purchasing traffic for your website or blog. You’re going to be spending money to acquire visitors to your website or blog, but you’re going to be making money in the end by monetizing those visitors with AdSense ads.

Once you have the traffic, you need to place AdSense ads by embedding a header code on that very page that you’ve acquired traffic for.

This is where Google AdSense arbitrage gets its name—you are essentially embedding (arbitraging) AdSense ads on your own website and making money off of them. To complete the process, you’re going to work to convert this traffic into leads when users click on your ads, thereby generating ad revenue.

The best part about it is that Google takes care of everything for you—you don’t need to worry about finding advertisers or creating the ads yourself.

Google AdSense Arbitrage: Is it worth it? MonitizeMore

Is AdSense Arbitrage legal?

When you first hear about AdSense Arbitrage, it might sound like a scam. That’s exactly what many assumed when the idea was first brought up, but AdSense Arbitrage is completely legal and allowed by Google. Publishers are ultimately responsible for their site’s traffic regardless of the sources.

Google’s monetization and ads policy states that publishers are welcome to promote their site in any manner that complies with Google’s program policies.

However, we do not recommend you to buy traffic from shady or untrustworthy sources.

For instance: click farms sending bot traffic to your site will ultimately lead to AdSense bans, ad serving restrictions, and revenue clawbacks.

This is why you need to be extremely cautioned while partnering with external third-party traffic providers.

If an AdSense account sees a large amount of bot and fake traffic, leading to invalid clicks on ads, the account will be suspended.

This type of activity is easy to mitigate if you use Traffic Cop which helps you detect and block all kinds of invalid traffic on your site.

AdSense Arbitrage Site Examples

AdSense arbitrage websites come in various forms, each utilizing unique content strategies:

  1. Content Aggregation Sites: These platforms compile news and articles from different sources, offering a diverse range of topics in one place. Example: CNN, Fox News
  2. Niche Sites: These sites provide in-depth information on specific topics, such as detailed product reviews, e-books, and educational content. Example: A site dedicated to organic gardening tips and eco-friendly gardening products like Joe Gardener.
  3. Coupon/Deal Websites: These websites are popular for showcasing the latest deals and promotions, attracting bargain hunters. Example: A platform featuring daily deals and discount codes for various online retailers like Honey.
  4. Online Job Boards: These sites connect employers with job seekers, offering listings in various industries. Example: A specialized job board for remote tech jobs like WeWorkRemotely.
  5. Product Review Websites: Focused on reviewing and comparing products, these sites guide consumers in making informed purchasing decisions. Example: A site providing comprehensive reviews and comparisons of the latest smartphones like MacRumors.

AdSense Arbitrage Profits & ROI

AdSense arbitrage can be profitable, but its success largely depends on choosing the right traffic sources and acquiring them at the lowest possible cost. The key is to ensure the traffic is legit and aligns well with the content, thus driving engagement and ad clicks. Efficient cost management and strategic ad placement play crucial roles in maximizing the return on investment (ROI). As with any online advertising strategy, it requires careful planning, monitoring, and adjustments to be successful.

Paid Traffic Sources for AdSense Arbitrage

Google AdSense Arbitrage: Is it worth it? MonitizeMore

Organic traffic and paid traffic are both solid ways to get visitors to your site. Despite the risks of purchasing traffic, AdSense arbitrage is an instant way to get some traffic rollin’ to your site.

Now, let’s discuss what are some effective and legal ways to buy traffic online:

Facebook

When it comes to purchasing quality website traffic, Facebook is a good choice.

The thing is, while 75% of Facebook traffic comes from mobile users, the majority of these are not interested in content that is longer than a few paragraphs. As such, while Facebook is an excellent source of traffic, it’s important to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile users to ensure maximum revenue.

RevContent

When you use RevContent to promote your content, you’ll have access to all the tools you need to get people clicking through to your site. You also get complete control over customized targeting, partnerships with similar sites, and all-around content promotion.

Bing Ads

The great thing about Bing ads is that they are more focused on organic searches than Google Adsense. This means that people looking for something specific will often use Bing, making relevant ads easier to find. Also, many of these users are using Bing because they have Windows computers, so the ad clicks tend to be more targeted and less like random web surfing.

Taboola

Taboola has created a service that allows AdSense publishers to create content hubs based on their most popular articles, which can lead to increased traffic from this service as well. It also enables a publisher to reach its audience in multiple ways, as users can reach publishers through different channels such as social media and search engines.

Google AdSense Arbitrage: Is it worth it? MonitizeMore

How Does AdSense Arbitrage Make Money?

Once you buy traffic from legit sources and its directed to your site, you can see improvements when it comes to boosted CTRs, more ad impressions, and better ad revenue.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

When it comes to AdSense arbitrage, the most important metric for a publisher to measure is Cost Per Click (CPC). In other words, when you’re trying to decide whether or not you can make money with arbitrage, all you have to do is measure how much you’re paying for traffic versus how much Google is paying you for that same traffic. One important thing I’ve noticed about AdSense arbitrage publishers is that they usually don’t pay close attention to this number, because they’re too focused on how much of their own money they’re putting into the project.

RPMs

Other than CPC, you also need to look into RPMs i.e revenue per milles as it gives a more accurate view on how much money your site is actually making. Once you calculate your RPM and keep track of it, you’ll know what you should be paying for traffic to make more money through AdSense arbitrage.

Tips for Results-Driven AdSense Arbitrage

To succeed in AdSense arbitrage, focus on high-interest, high-traffic niches rather than just high CPC ones. Create a quality, user-friendly website with original content, ideally with a minimum of 30 posts, each 1000-1200 words, and use royalty-free images.

Be cautious with ad placements; avoid overloading pages with ads to prevent Google from replacing them with blank spaces.

Monitor your paid traffic sources using tools like Google Analytics to avoid bot traffic and ensure compliance with Google’s strict policies on quality and authenticity. Remember, successful arbitrage hinges on attracting high-quality traffic while adhering to Google’s guidelines.

How MonetizeMore’s Traffic Cop can help protect your site from IVT coming through paid traffic?

Google AdSense Arbitrage: Is it worth it? MonitizeMore
You can use the Traffic Cop dashboard to dig deeper into the traffic quality coming into your site

 

It is the publisher’s responsibility to monitor paid traffic sources daily via Google Analytics and Search Console to avoid any AdSense suspensions and revenue clawbacks.

You need to:

-Regularly check for duplicate content by running a report in Google Search Console

-Check daily for ad quality issues with chrome extensions like PubGuru Ad Inspector

-Monitor your site’s traffic weekly to make sure all third-party sources are still delivering human traffic and not bot traffic.

 

Ultimately, we want you to enjoy the benefits of Google AdSense without the headaches that come along with trying to collect revenue from invalid traffic.

There are plenty of legit publishers out there who are losing money and getting their AdSense accounts suspended due to the presence of over-aggressive bots populating their ad space. Since bots tend to be far more active during high-volume periods, they also skew the results of your analysis data, leading you to believe that your overall traffic is higher than it really is.

Since bot detection isn’t enough on its own—you also need to leverage effective bot blocking solutions —to ensure that the human activity on your website is actually valuable, and not just some bot trying to crack your CAPTCHA.

Here at MonetizeMore, our goal is to offer a variety of solutions that put control and profitability back in your hands. We are laser-focused on identifying and blocking invalid traffic that comes from external sources to your site.

We strongly recommend that you use bot detection to ensure your business is safeguarded from malicious attacks that can come from paid traffic sources while using AdSense Arbitrage.

Be proactive, protect yourself, and make sure you’re getting the real deal instead of simply more “garbage”.

Talk to one of our AdOps experts to learn more about our solutions.

Conclusion

AdSense Arbitrage is one way to gain extra income, but it probably isn’t worth it. The reason being is that you’re creating unnecessary risk for yourself. If Google sees there’s something shady going on in your AdSense account, then you’re likely to lose a lot of time and money. It’s just not worth it.

Publishers should never be using 100% paid traffic but should also grow their online presence socially and organically.

To avoid AdSense suspensions and revenue clawbacks due to invalid traffic (IVT) from paid traffic sources, you’ll need to use IVT blocking solutions like Traffic Cop for maximum ROI.

We hope that this article has shed some light on the automated traffic dilemma, and given you a few tips on how to protect yourself from the scourge of invalid clickers. Enjoy your AdSense revenue folks!

Start protecting your ad inventory today. Learn More!

Google AdSense Arbitrage: Is it worth it? MonitizeMore

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