Originally most affiliate programs were pay per click affiliate programs where webmasters got paid to send people to an affiliate link. This would be most preferable to webmasters, just to get the potential customer to the website and get paid. Most affiliate programs have begun preferring cost per action because there is more profit to be made on their end. Finding pay per click affiliate programs has been harder to do but still not an impossible task.
It is understandable why pay per action affiliate programs would be preferred by many businesses. With pay per click, there is still a risk involved. You have to make sure that the title and ad itself is written in such a way that it meets all the website's guidelines that can be pretty strict. You also have very limited space and you have to make sure that you have just the right keywords. If you happen to catch someone who isn't exactly interested in what you are offering and they click through but don't buy, you very well may have wasted that money.
They have to decide about how many click throughs convert into sales and that can be an pretty inexact science sometimes. Because of the risk and the potential cost involved and that smaller businesses may have a very limited advertising budget, they will often decide to go the much safer route and use an affiliate program in which they only pay for actual sales.
There are still pay per click affiliate programs to be found and most of them can be found in networks such as the Commission Junction. As with most affiliate programs, you will want to use networks such as that just so you can investigate what programs work and which ones do not. It will also help you keep track of clicks and payments received and will keep track of multiple sites for you.
The bulk of the pay per click affiliate programs are going to be things like online dating, casinos and other situations where they are likely to be making money off of anyone who comes to their site. If you can find a program like one of these that fits the type of site that you want to have or is something that you are comfortable with, then these pay per click affiliate programs are for you.
If you can work to get a lot of traffic to your website then pay per click affiliate programs can be incredibly profitable. Most accounts with affiliate marketing directories are free so there is very little cost involved there.
If you do decide to try a pay per click affiliate program you are going to have to work on getting a lot of traffic. The amount of money that you make per click is very small. In many cases it can be less than a dollar. In cases where there is a decent dollar amount per click ($5-10) there may be a high demand for people wanting that one so there could be a lot of people chasing after those few dollars that is in many advertising budgets.
It will take a lot of work to have a pay per click affiliate program that becomes successful but, as with everything else in internet marketing, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. |