Well to start with you may be wondering, what is affiliate marketing? Quite simply, this is a way in which an advertiser places a link upon your web page. When you receive traffic through your site then these viewers have the potential to earn you money in a number of different ways. The three most common options with affiliate marketing are pay per click, pay per impression, and pay per sale or lead.
Pay per click is one of the most popular options, and a good example of this is the Google AdSense affiliate program. When a visitor to your site clicks on the advertisements that you have placed on the site, you will receive a small amount of money for the click, hence the term pay per click or PPC. The two factors that dictate the amount of money you can make in this way are the amount of traffic to your site, and the choice of ads that appear on your site. If you have a site that has a high traffic flow, then you will be able to generate a higher number of clicks, which in turn means a higher amount of money you can earn. This is why the selection of ads is important, but it is mostly about commonsense. If your site is about plumbing accessories, then ads for ladies handbags are probably not going to get you a lot of clicks.
The next type of affiliate marketing that can earn you money is pay per impression marketing, also sometimes known as CPM. This is where an organization posts an ad on your website and you are paid an amount based upon the number of views of the site. This may vary between advertisers, but you could generally expect to receive around $5 per thousand views or impressions. This is a form of advertising that is best for very high levels of traffic, as it may not generate as much revenue on a site that is not visited as often.
The other popular style of affiliate marketing is the pay per sale or lead. This is an affiliate program that works in a similar manner to the pay per click affiliate programs, in so much as the user needs to click on the link from your site. With this option the visitor to the site clicks on a link to a site that is selling a product or service. When the visitor hits the site it is tracked from your site and if they subsequently make a purchase or they affiliate site receives a lead from them, then you are paid a commission on this. Its often a smaller percentage of your traffic that you will convert in this way, but when you do this successfully you will receive more returns than from the PPC or CPM affiliate programs. As with the PPC option, you are advised to select advertising that corresponds with the products or services that you are selling/promoting on your website.
Making money from affiliate marketing is a straight forward option for many site managers and owners. There are a large number of options available, and in most cases it is possible to mix things up and have affiliates that fit into each of the groups above. If you are ready to start working on generating revenue from your website then all you need to do is visit affiliate sites and sign up with their programs and you will be on your way.
Deep Arora is an Internet marketer with over 7 years of online experience and he teaches internet marketing from his blog at HowIDid.com. Check out his blog for some amazing techniques today..