Tim Pfeiffer's Blog » Affiliates

What You Dont Know About Affiliate Marketing

Tim — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:30:26 +0000

Affiliate programs are also known as associate programs, partner programs, reseller programs and sponsor programs.

In a general sense, these programs allow you to use any online advertising medium to share revenue with an affiliate merchant website, by receiving a portion of their income for delivering customers who result in sales, leads or traffic to the affiliate merchant website.

The popularity of affiliate marketing is very well realized now than earlier. This is prominent among the reasons for the high visibility of affiliate marketing programs among the ever growing number of affiliate marketers on a daily basis.

Latest web technology has enabled the affiliate marketers to get their statistics and income figures the moment they make an affiliate sale. It is now possible to use companies like PayPal for payment and receipt processing. This has highly curtailed the time that an affiliate marketer needs to wait for his payments to be collected from the merchants.

Today, both the merchants and the affiliates can see clearly that affiliate marketing can work for both of them. The merchant sees affiliate marketing today as the chance to advertise their products at a lower cost. The affiliates, on the other hand, sees affiliate marketing as an easy way of earning profits online by doing what they like most, and that is by creating websites.

Just as the reputation of affiliate marketing has gone up, similarly the attitude of people has enhanced with respect to affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is no more regarded as an inferior method of marketing by the merchants or as a secondary source of income by an affiliate marketer. Both merchants and affiliates regard affiliate marketing as a main source of profits and revenues.

So the question now is what type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? Are all affiliate marketing programs the same? Are the benefits the same? Or are there affiliate marketing programs that work better than the others?

There are actually a large variety of affiliate marketing methods, and the types will depend on how they are going to be classified. The macro level classification of affiliate marketing programs falls under three main categories: pay-per-click (PPC), pay-per-play (PPP) and pay-per-performance (PPP).

TYPES OF AFFILIATE MARKETING

1. PPC – Pay-Per-Click is a highly promoted and used affiliate marketing method by affiliates with websites or small websites. This is also the easiest way for them to start making money. Under this method of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid a commission by the merchant when a visitor visits the merchant’s site through the affiliate’s reference, that is, whenever a visitor clicks and goes to the merchant’s site through the banner or text ads that the affiliate has put up.

A website owner would be given a simple code (html codes) to paste onto any webpage where the website owner wants a visitor to see the advertisements. The ads will be related to the webpage content. Pay per click is free to join but they have very strict policies especially against fraudulent clicks by owners of websites on which the advertisements are displayed.

2. PPP- Pay Per Play: Pay per Play (PPP) is the latest wave in internet advertising. When a person visits a webpage which hosts these ads, they will hear a single 5 second professional audio advertisement. The advertisement will be relevant to the content of the webpage.How does this work? It works much like current Pay per Click programs, minus one critical element – there will be no click required by the visitors! 100% of visitors to the webpage will generate revenue for the webpage owner. That’s the Pay Per Play Advantage! Advertisers will bid to have their ad placed on a particular website. The winner’s ad will play when a visitor opens that webpage. In turn, the website owner will get paid for every visitor to his website. The more pages the website owner has with these ads, and the more traffic he has, the more income he will generate.

3. Pay-Per-Performance (PPP) – PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action – that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant’s site or when the visitor becomes a lead.

A further classification of Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be done into two types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL). Both these are very popular:

a) Pay-Per-Sale (PPS) – In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the affiliates get the commission from the merchants whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant’s site actually buys something from the merchant’s site.

b) Pay-Per-Lead (PPL) – The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant’s site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company.

Iyaomolere Ayodele is a Mobile Marketer, an Internet Marketer, Publisher and Entrepreneur. Get invaluable information on Internet Marketing And Online Businesses On His Blog! http://www.internetglance.com
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What Are the Different Types of Affiliate Marketing Programs

Tim — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:39:00 +0000

Affiliate marketing programs has never been as popular before as it is today. Why? There can be a number of reasons. The most probable reason, however, could be the fact that the benefits of affiliate marketing have become clearer to a lot of people now than they were before.
Today, both the merchants and the affiliates can see clearly that affiliate marketing can work for both of them. The merchant sees affiliate marketing today as the chance to advertise their products at a lower cost. The affiliates, on the other hand, sees affiliate marketing as an easy way of earning profits online by doing what they like most, and that is by creating websites.
Just as the popularity of affiliate marketing has shifted into greater heights, so has the people’s outlook about it changed. No longer is affiliate marketing considered today as an alternative method for the merchant to advertise his products, or as a source of additional income for the affiliates. For merchants and affiliates alike, affiliate marketing is now considered as a main source of profits and revenues.
So the question now is what type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? Are all affiliate marketing programs the same? Are the benefits the same? Or are there affiliate marketing programs that work better than the others?
There are actually different types or classes of affiliate marketing, and the number of types will depend on how one will classify them. The most basic affiliate marketing programs, however, falls under two categories: pay-per-click (PPC), and pay-per-performance (PPP).
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing for affiliates with small websites, and probably the easiest way for them to earn money. In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his site, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant’s banner or text ads. The affiliate gets paid a certain amount even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant’s site. However, typical fees for PPC affiliate programs are small, usually not exceeding a dollar for every click.
Pay Per Performance (PPP)
PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an actionthat is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant’s site or when the visitor becomes a lead. This means a lot of savings for the merchant. On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the actual product sales.
Pay-per-performance affiliate marketing can be further classified into two popular types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL).
oPay Per Sale (PPS)
In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant’s site actually buys something from the merchant’s site. Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee. But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is generally higher than the fee paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.
oPay Per Lead (PPL)
The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant’s site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company. Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.
Aside from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing. There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the customer he has referred purchases something from the merchant’s site.
Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing
These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made. In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant. All the previously mentioned affiliate marketing types (i.e. PPS< PPL, and PPC) fall under the single-tier classification.
In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct traffic or sales that he refers to the merchant's site, but also on every traffic or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation. Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.
Residual Income Affiliate Marketing
In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant's site. Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase another product. Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.
The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits. Which type of affiliate marketing will work best for you? It is not really for me to tell. Rather, it is for you to choose which type of affiliate marketing program will suit your needs and characteristics best.

For more information on affiliate marketing from John Ugoshowa see the affiliate marketing section of TheFreeAdForum.com directory at:http://www.thefreeadforum.com/infowizards/CAT/Affiliate-Marketing_68_1.html
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