When you are having an affiliate marketing blog where you want to review products and services about the things you love then In-Text ads are definitely not the best way to monetize your affiliate blog. The reason is that when you are reviewing a product, then you would definitely be putting the affiliate link in your blogs. What In-Text ads does it it will increase your links in the post. Now, your readers might end up clicking the In-Text link instead of your affiliate link and you will be losing the commissions. If there are 6-7 links in your blog then chances are that your affiliate link will be clicked is minimal.
And, if you are having In-Text ads with affiliate links, that means you are having too many links in your posts. It looks like over selling and it would be like more than content there are links in the blog. Your blog will look cluttered with ads of all sorts, which is not a great thing to start with.
So, what’s the solution?
You could take the In-text ads out of the content area and let it roll in the sidebars, footer or header region. But, again there’s not much text content in these regions and you wouldn’t be making any money at all. So, the best way is to stay away from In-Text ads for an affiliate marketing blog. In fact I would say you should stay away from any PPC based for an affiliate marketing blog. Even, when you are putting the banners, you can put the affiliate marketing banners.
Also, when you are using PPC ads you would be making a few cents when an ad is clicked and by affiliate marketing if a product is purchased you get anywhere from 20 to 50%.
Another thing about Affiliate marketing is that, you want to recommend products to your readers. So, no matter how much the In-Text links are contextual, they are not what you are recommending. A reader might get confused with what you want to recommend and what links are present in your post.