AdSense in fashion for those who wear many hats

Here's another AdSense Story Contest submission, this time from internet entrepreneur Shawn Collins of New Jersey.



Shawn has been an affiliate marketer since 1997, and joined AdSense in 2003 after he found it to be a natural extension for monetizing his websites. He wears a lot of different hats as an Internet marketer -- not only is Shawn the co-founder of the Affiliate Summit conference, but he also runs the Affiliate Buyer's Guide and is an affiliate himself.

Before AdSense, Shawn relied on running affiliate ads and selling space on a CPM basis. This could be hit or miss, as he would manually try to place ads that were the best fit. As his sites grew, he would sometimes forget about a time-sensitive ad, and that ad slot would become wasted space. "With the contextually served ads from AdSense," Shawn says, "my advertising is always fresh and spot on."

Shawn also blogs daily about affiliate marketing and maintains an affiliate manager resource site. His audience is savvy, since they're internet marketers as well, so he considers it essential that targeted, relevant advertising is served up to his visitors. According to Shawn, "AdSense is an ideal solution for my varied web properties, and I work with AdSense for content, AdSense for search, referrals, and video units."

As Shawn mentions in his video, one of the highlights of his day (sometimes many times a day) is when he logs in to his AdSense account. He likens it to holding a lottery ticket as he waits for his daily earnings to be revealed. "I try to guess the daily total, based on my past performance, which makes the whole process a little more fun. When I experiment with new placements or have a particularly good day with my traffic, it's always a thrill to see my milestones measured in AdSense commission spikes."