What is an Affiliate Program?

Affiliate programs are a form of online marketing that provides substantially lower up front costs for advertising. Affiliates place special referral links on their site, driving traffic to your site, all of which is tracked via the link. These systems are flexible and inexpensive to implement.

The potential of affiliate marketing has recently been unleashed upon the web, growing in popularity due to the guarantee of only having to pay for successful advertising. Instead of simply paying to get your name out there, you only pay when you yourself have profited. Affiliate programs are springing up everywhere, and have become the linchpin of online marketing.

It is common to find large sites with countless referrals going on, with Amazon and a few others on the highest end. This allows the site to offer their products across a number of established markets, and benefits both the referrer, who is paid for traffic that may not have been making them much on a per capita basis, and the site running the affiliate program, which benefits from new customers.

It is not uncommon to find sites that take advantage of this, focusing almost entirely on marketing for their affiliates. They are talented at brining high value traffic to their site, and because of this are rewarded when their visitors spend their dollars on affiliate products. There is a great deal of money to be made on the web, it’s just a matter of finding the right partners and products.

Omnistar Affiliate provides you with the best Affiliate Manager money can buy, all for the reasonable price of $167.00. For this you get an application that can handle every aspect of your affiliate marketing. It automatically allows new affiliates in, tracks referrals, keeps detailed invoices of commission, and notifies you when to pay your affiliates.

Best of all, you have the flexibility of options, allowing you to choose the way you pay, the rate you pay, and when you pay. This means you’ll be able to use affiliate exactly as YOU need it, after all, isn’t that what is most important?

Because the software does the math itself, you don’t have to worry about calculating who you owe what. Our software is extremely reliable, because nothing is left up to chance, the linked page the customer goes to tracks their referrer, and then adds a commission to their account only if the customer completes the purchase process and checks out.

But how does one use the different types of campaigns?

Types of Campaigns

There are 3 basic types of affiliate programs, Per Click, Per Sale, and Per Lead. These and a few others are explained below:

CPM (cost per thousand impressions)

CPM pays your affiliate simply for putting your banner on a high traffic page. The affiliate is paid a specific amount every one thousand impressions they direct to the link. This means the referrer is being paid for driving a volume of traffic to your site, not necessarily for sales. These programs are a good way to get your foot in the door with referrers, but are a less reliable source of income.

Per Click

Per Click advertising is well known due to its use by Google AdWords. Essentially you pay your affiliate a commission for each unique visitor that clicks on the link. This is similar to paying based on impressions, and generally the payment rate is relatively low. These programs work well when used with affiliates known to bring a high quality of traffic.

Per Sale

Per Sale is a simple commission payment system, you pay the affiliate for every sale they direct to you. Usually you pay a fixed percentage or amount for each sale, ranging from 5% to as high as 50%, depending on the value of the product, its profit margin, and your relationship with your affiliate. This method has the lowest up-front cost.

Per Lead

Per Lead commission differs slightly from Per Sale. In this case, you pay your affiliate for each customer who provides you with their email address and other vital information. While less profitable up front than sales, these leads are interested in your products and may lead to sales in the future.

Per leads work best when they forward the user to a form where they enter their info. The payment is per visitor who submits their info, so the value is determined by the individual affiliate manager.

Recurring Support

If your product involves repeat billing, such as a monthly fee or an annual subscription, you want to offer recurring support, which pays the affiliate every time a user pays you. This is commonly used for hosting plans or domain names. The commission for these payments is generally a flat percentage.