Why I Pivoted to Google Ads - And Have Never Felt Better About The Future

October 01, 2025 • Nielszee

As an affiliate marketer in SEO, the market sentiment has never been so negative. We see sites tanking their traffic everywhere from left to right. Even the OG of Organic SEO, the Hubspot blog lost -85% of its SEO traffic:

And I know how it feels myself as well…

One of my portfolio website that used to rely on Google Search traffic

But hey, I found a way out. That’s what this article is all about.

You can follow Google’s SEO guidelines, building businesses on “free” clicks - while paying tens of thousands on backlinks - and hoping the next update wouldn’t wipe everything out. But with AI eating organic traffic, the “free” lunch is officially over. The only way forward is to stop fighting Google and start fighting with them. By leveraging their €264 billion ad engine.

Aligning with Google’s incentives

It’s a tough pill to swallow, but Google doesn’t owe anything to publishers. They’re not in the game of sending traffic to websites, they’re a big tech corporation maximizing shareholder value and looking for profits. ‘Put your money where your mouth is’ is not the path to take.

‘Put your money where their money is’ however, I very much agree with. And where else to look than their €264 billion/year advertising business: Google Ads.

Something that SEOs would always love to do in the past is shitting on ‘how much better’ SEO is than Ads. This has been said so many times, that nobody doubts it anymore, just like nobody doubted the doctors when they said cigarettes were healthy

(Old) SEO Advantages

Reality in 2025

Reality with Google Ads

Long-term, compounding ROI

Constant, brutal algorithm updates

Instant results, no algorithm risk

Top & mid of funnel traffic from content

Eaten alive by AI Overviews & LLMs

Never worked for BOFU & TOFU to begin with

High Multiple Exits for Content Sites

Lower multiples, buyers want diversification

Diversify revenue, consistent results

Search used to be about patience, compounding, and waiting for rankings. Now it’s about volatility, lost traffic, and exits at half the multiples. AI has eaten the top of the funnel. Even Hubspot is now focusing mainly on ‘Bottom of Funnel SEO’, which is basically the same keywords you’re targeting with Google Ads. If SEO is really no longer our golden goose, then what is our SEO reality in 2025?

SEO got a lot less lucrative - and you know it

Here’s what our current reality is:

LLMs & AI Overviews are eating your top of funnel visitors for breakfast

First, it was featured snippets, now AI overviews and LLMs (like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) are answering top of funnel queries for users directly. AI overviews decrease the CTR of the top result between 30-40%.

Still leaning on Hubspot as a primary example, the former king of top of funnel content just proves there is no such thing as being safe at the top of the SERPs:

Google is having more frequent and targeted algorithm updates

The most volatile market in the world is not crypto, Turkey, or China; it’s Google. In the last 3 years there were 19 confirmed algorithm updates (11x Core, 3x HCU, 2x Product Review, 5x Spam). Of these, I’ll assume that the 3 HCU and 2 Product Review updates are specifically targeted at SEO-focused affiliates. Every update is a risk for you to have to start over. That’s a big ask. I personally lost over €40.000 in monthly profits overnight during an HCU update. I know how it feels. So, are we the problem and we're simply not following Google's guidelines?

Google’s highlighted ‘Publisher Success Stories’ are being hit left and right

Domains highlighted by Google’s Publisher Stories have been hit by the HCU. These are sites that Google handpicked to be ‘examples to follow’. And on average they lost -21.62% traffic in a single update.

‘Putting your money where Google’s mouth is’, is not a profitable path to take here. So we can’t listen to Google. To who can we look for consistent SEO results? The frontier SEOs?

The Affiliate SEO Courses Are Closing

Great, front-running Affiliate SEO courses like Affiliate Lab (from Matt Diggity, also partner in this venture, AffRamp) and Authority Hackers are closed, since they saw that the Niche Site Model dependent on SEO does not give predictable results anymore.

Because of things like this, us affiliate publishers are left in the dark on how to get sustainable results like we used to get before the first HCU.

Moreover, more volatility and decreased ROI mean:

Lower exit-multiples for SEO dependent businesses

SEO isn’t as sustainable anymore as it used to be. That’s why multiples are plummeting and often traffic diversification is needed in order to close the deal. And our businesses are worth less because of it.

Now, I’m not here to be negative about the future. If you know me, I’m anything but negative. So, let me offer you a solution.

The Long-Term Google Ads Advantages

SEOs, you shouldn’t care where your traffic comes from. Why care about traffic in general? I only care about profit, and right now, Google Ads is giving me a lot of profits.

Google Ads is an opportunity to either diversify your traffic or get back the money you made from SEO in the past. The affiliates and operators who are open to this will (re)capture a new wave of affiliate commissions.

The advantages:

Control: Ads aren’t subject to surprise algorithm updates.
Speed: You can test, pivot, and scale within days, not months.
Alignment: You’re playing in Google’s revenue sandbox, not against it.
Exit Value: Businesses with diversified traffic and predictable profit command higher multiples.

SEO had its golden age. It’s not dead, but the moat is shrinking by the day. Google Ads, on the other hand, is a business Google is protecting like its life depends on it (because with $264 billion, it does).

PS: Google made $264 billion in ad revenue in 2024 (while $224b in 2022), that’s more revenue, even though ChatGPT was around for some time already.

The long-term advantage now lies with those who align themselves with Google’s business model, not against it. If you want stability, scalability, and consistent ROI, Google Ads is where the puck is going.

You already have the content, team, systems and deals

SEOs like to stay in their lane. However, if the market forces you to pivot (which it does), Google Ads is the most reasonable option to go into. Because:

1. You have the pages set up

2. You know which pages convert best

3. You know the keyword for which to rank

4. You know what products convert best

5. You have the team in place to optimize content

6. You already have all the deals

Finally, SEO is not free. You’re spending thousands on topical authority, linkbuilding, and salaries. You’re already spending money for traffic. The same with Google Ads.

So all the ingredients are there for you to try out Google Ads. Now, go try it out, or…

Let us do it for you

There are many intricacies on how to run Google Ads campaigns, get the tracking setup, improving your commission deals, and changing your landing pages to bemore profitable.

That’s why we launched AffRamp.com. You already have all the pages and deals, let us do the daily work of getting the campaigns profitable, for a 50/50 profit split. No upfront costs or hourly costs. Only perfect alignment. We’re only working with companies we’re certain we can grow their bottom line.

We are currently only accepting three (cherry-picked) clients, to ensure maximum profitability. That’s why I encourage you to apply if you made a lot of money now or in the past with bottom of funnel affiliate SEO. If you’ve lost rankings (like me), not a problem, everything is recoverable.