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.

 

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 the affiliate software 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 his referrer, and then adds a commission to his account only if the customer completes the purchase process and checks out.

But how does one use the different types of campaigns?

 Types of CampaignsThere 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 he directs 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 ClickPer 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 SalePer Sale is a simple commission payment

system, you pay the affiliate for every sale he directs 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 LeadPer Lead commission differs slightly from

Per Sale. In this case, you pay your affiliate for each customer who provides you with an 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 users to a form where they enter their info. The payment is per visitor who submits his info, so the value is determined by the individual affiliate manager.

Recurring SupportIf 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.

 

Best Affiliate Software to Setup Affiliate Program

Omnistar Affiliate Software is the leader in affiliate tracking software. You can easily setup an affiliate program to grow your business in under 10 minutes. The software is extremely easy to use and very powerful. Omnistar is used by thousands of companies to start an affiliate program.

http://www.osiaffiliate.com