How can you make money in Affiliate Marketing? What “consumer actions” can an Affiliate of an Affiliate Marketing Program be compensated for? How does Affiliate Marketing Compensation work? These are two of the most frequently asked questions clients have when looking for us to set up their Affiliate Website and Shop. The following are the different models for actions undertaken by the consumer that will result in an Affiliate earning money:
- Cost Per Sale (CPS) or Pay Per Sale (PPS): The most popular model being used by companies who offer Affiliate Marketing Programs. Affiliate gets paid a percentage of each sale they refer. Approximately 80% of Affiliate Programs use this use this payment model.
- Cost per lead (CPL) or Pay per lead (PPL): Affiliates receive compensation for referred leads, e.g., subscriptions, forms submitted, free trials etc.
- Cost per Click (CPC) or Pay Per Click (PPC): This model is ending. It is sometimes referred to as a “ceasing model” mainly to the high volume of fraud. There may be variations on this model such as EBay’s Quality Click Pricing (QCP), where the pay per click value changes daily based on the value of Affiliate referred traffic.
- Pay Per Call (PPCall): This is where Advertisers pay Affiliates for ” Hot Leads ” (e.g., prospects calling in) Inbound calls or Pay Per Call bridges the gap between online and telephone sales.
There are also a number of hybrids of the above and many other compensation plans where the affiliate is paid per sale, lead, click, call or other action e.g., downloads, installs, free trials, subscriptions, views or some other specified action.
The basic core of all Affiliate Programs’ payment structure is “performance-based pay for action.”