The Main Types of Affiliate Programs You can Use to Earn Cash Online

To make a choice easy for anyone looking to what type of affiliate marketing would be best to make money online and what programs can work better for them, we can classify all affiliate programs in three broad types. It is classified depending on affiliate performance for a merchant and way he gets commissions. The affiliates are either using one or two of the types of affiliate program to run their business.

The broad categories of affiliate programs include pay per click, pay per lead and pay per sale.

Pay per click affiliate program is as the name says, it pays for each visitors you direct to the merchant site. Pay per click is the easiest way to generate income with your site. However, the pay for each click is usually low. From $0.10 to $0.40 per click in general. Ad optimization is necessary if you like to earn a consistent income with pay per click affiliate program. FOr beginners, this type of affiliate program is highly recommended.

The pay per sale affiliate program on the other hand is the most common type of affiliate program. Most affiliate programs work in per per sale basis where the affiliate only get pay when he/she refer a sale for the merchant. The pay is good in these programs but a lot of effort need to put in get sales. And also you must have some experience in Internet marketing if you want to go for pay per sale affiliate program.

The pay per lead seems to be very hot now. This is because a number of people have made decent income with it. It often works better than pay per sale program because the affiliates aren't necessary to refer sales for the merchant. All they need to do is refer leads for the merchant. A lead can be direct visitor to the merchant to sign up for a free product, to submit a quote, to join a newsletter and etc. The affiliates will get paid $1 to $5 per lead for just sending the visitors to the merchant site and take a simple action in the site. Often, the visitors will go for the sign up because the site is offering something that they like. Thus, affiliate marketers can consider this type of affiliate program if they want to make big money online.