"Should I add ads or affiliate links?" — the question assumes they compete. They monetize different moments: display pays for attention (every visitor, tiny amounts), affiliate pays for trust (few visitors, larger amounts, only on decision-ready pages). The sequencing question is real though, and it has a defensible answer.
Why display usually comes first
AdSense needs no trust to work — a visitor who bounces after eight seconds still produced an impression. On a young site with modest traffic and unproven authority, display is the only monetization that pays from day one, funds hosting, and — more subtly — proves to search engines that the site is a maintained commercial entity. It's also low-risk: no merchant relationships, no commission tracking, no disclosure obligations beyond the standard ones.
When affiliate takes the lead
Some sites invert the order legitimately: product-review intent traffic ("best X for Y", "X vs Y") arrives already in buying mode. For those pages, affiliate RPM per visitor dwarfs display — one converted software referral can out-earn a month of that page's ad impressions. If your content spine is reviews and comparisons, affiliate isn't the second act; it's the show, and display is the floor beneath it.
The conflict to manage
Both at once, clumsily, cannibalize each other. A page stuffed with four affiliate blocks and four ad units reads as a bazaar; trust — the affiliate prerequisite — dies, and display CTR falls with the session depth. The resolution is architectural: informational pages carry display; commercial pages carry affiliate plus a restrained display presence. Map every URL to one primary monetization before adding the secondary.
The honest sequence
Launch: display only (or nothing while building authority). Establish review-shaped content: affiliate on those pages, display everywhere else. Mature: display as floor across the site, affiliate as upside on the commercial third, direct deals on top if the audience is describable. Each layer added when the previous one's assumptions are actually true — that's the whole art of it.
