Understanding Affiliate Program Payment Types

If you’re just getting started as an affiliate marketer, it will be helpful for you to know the various types of affiliate program opportunities there are on the web. Not everyone realizes there are different ways to make money from affiliate programs, so I’ll summarize the top ones here for you.

1. Pay Per Sale (PPS) - This is the most common type of affiliate program. When promoting programs, products or services on a pay per sale basis, the affiliate only earns money when a sale is made through their affiliate link. Usually the money earned is a percentage of the total sale, and this is called the affiliate commission.

With a Pay Per Sale type of affiliate program, it’s important for the affiliate marketer to select programs and products which will sell well in their chosen niche. Otherwise you’ll be wasting a lot of time and effort and getting very little in terms of sales results.

In order for sales to be made consistently in a Pay Per Sale program, the products must be very good, the sales letter must be very good, and the merchant must also be very good. Then of course, the affiliate must be able to send enough targeted traffic to those sales pages, so that sales can actually be made.

2. Pay Per Click (PPC) - A pay per click affiliate program usually involves some sort of advertising. Instead of the affiliate marketer recommending specific products and services, they simply put advertisements on their website or in their email newsletters. When visitors or readers click an ad, the affiliate earns a small amount of money.

The most popular PPC affiliate program online today is the Google AdSense program. There are many others though, and each has different criteria for joining, as well as earning money and being paid.

PPC affiliate programs are popular with many affiliate marketers, because they feel like they don’t have to actually try and sell anything. Instead, they can provide great content on a blog or website, and the visitors click ads passively.

3. Pay Per Lead (PPL) - Pay Per Lead affiliate programs are popular because an affiliate can make money just by giving away something free. There is no sale involved, and the affiliate referral commissions are often quite lucrative.

With PPL affiliate programs, the affiliate usually just needs to get their visitor to fill out a form requesting more information, or fill out a survey or opinion poll. In some cases, all the affiliate has to do is get the visitors to sign up to an email list, and they’ll earn money from these actions.

4. Pay Per Action (PPA) - This term is often used synonymously with either any or all of the above. With a pay per action affiliate program, the affiliate’s job is to get their targeted visitors to take a specific action. Sometimes that action is to buy something, sometimes it’s just requesting free information. Other times the visitors have to take a survey or sign up for an email list. The types of actions vary from one affiliate program offer to another, but just like the other affiliate payment types above, once the action is performed, the affiliate earns a commission.