Affiliate Programs

Why You Ought to Promote Residual Affiliate Programs



Are you a webmaster in need of reliable income? Or are you

planning to set up an online concern but you still don't have any

product to sell? If so, affiliate marketing may be the best

answer for your problems. With affiliate marketing, you won't

need to be anxious about the products you have to sell. All you

need to maintain is a website with adequate contents that are

related to the products of an established online company offering

affiliate programs. By becoming a member of the program, or by

becoming an affiliate, you can start earning a certain amount of

money right away!



Affiliate marketing is some sort of business relationship

established between a vendor and his affiliates. In affiliate

marketing, an affiliate agrees to direct some traffic to a

merchant's website. If that traffic is converted into some kind

of activity, like a visitor purchasing a product on the

merchant's website or a visitor becoming a lead for the company,

the affiliate who directed the traffic will be compensated.

Compensation may take the configuration of either a percentage

sales commission for the sales generated or a fixed fee

prearranged upon the application of the affiliate to the

merchant's affiliate program.



Promising a lot of advantages both for the merchants and the

affiliates, affiliate marketing has become one of the most

popular online marketing methods at the moment. In fact, almost

every merchant or retailer site today offers an affiliate program

that any one can join. Most retailers would prevail on people to

become affiliates or members of their program by promising

prodigious benefits like hefty commissions, lifetime commissions,

click through incomes and a lot of other benefits. But would all

these affiliate programs bring off the selfsame benefits?

Most affiliate programs would pay you, as an affiliate, a onetime

commission for every sale or lead you brought to the merchant's

website. Commissions for this kind of affiliate programs are

customarily large, ranging from 15% to a high of around 60% or

even 75% . Other affiliate programs would pay you a fixed fee for

every click through or bit of traffic you send to the merchant's

site. Programs like this often pay a smaller fee for every click

through, usually not getting any larger than fifty cents. The

good thing about this kind of program, nevertheless, is that the

visitor doesn't have to purchase anything in order for the

affiliate to get compensated.



Another type of affiliate program is the residual income

affiliate program. Residual affiliate programs as a rule pay only

a small percentage of sales commission for every sale directed by

the affiliate to the merchant's site. This commission often comes

only in the range of 10% to 20% sales commission. Because of

this, many people ignore residual affiliate program and would

rather opt for the high rewarding onetime commission affiliate

program. Are these people making a faux pas, or are they making

the right decision?



We can't tell, for sure, whether or not people are making a

misstep by choosing a high paying onetime commission affiliate

program. But we can definitely say that they are making a big

mistake if they ignore residual affiliate programs altogether.

Residual affiliate programs would doubtless pay at a lower rate,

but merchants offering such kind of programs generally pay you

predictable and continuous commissions for a single affiliate

initiated sale! That means, that for the same amount of trouble

you made in promoting a specific affiliate program, you get paid

only one time in a onetime commission program, and a habitual and

ongoing commission for a residual program!



So, are the advantage of promoting residual affiliate programs

clearer to you now? Or are they still vague? If they are still

hazy, then let's make them a bit clearer with this illustration.

Suppose there are two online merchants both offering web hosting

services on their sites. The first retailer offers a onetime

commission sort of affiliate program that pays $80 for every

single affiliate initiated sale. The second merchant also offers

an affiliate program, but this time a residual affiliate program

that pays only $10 for every single affiliate initiated sale. As

an affiliate, we may get attracted at once to what the first

dealer is offering, as $80 is definitely a lot larger than $10.

But by thinking things over before in fact getting into them, one

may be able to see that the second merchant is offering us more

occasion to earn a larger amount of money.



Supposed you have directed traffic to the merchant and it is

converted into a sale, you'll get paid once by the first merchant

for the sale you have initiated. But with the second merchant,

you'll get paid monthly for as long as the customer you have

referred to the merchant continues to avail of the web hosting

service. That means that for the same effort of getting one

customer to subscribe to the merchant's service, you get paid

monthly in residual affiliate programs while you only get paid

once in a onetime commission type affiliate programs.



So, are residual affiliate programs worth promoting?

Categorically yes, because you potentially get more money from

these types of affiliate programs in the long run! And would

residual affiliate programs work best for you? Maybe, maybe not.

It is not really for me to say. But with the benefits that

residual affiliate marketing can provide, it would really be

shortsighted to ignore such programs.



_________________________________________________________________

Daniel J. Johnese is the owner of http://MyAffiliateAlert.com, a

site that provides much information and insights into how to be

successful as an Affiliate Marketer. Click through to

http://myaffilatealert.com to sign up for a free program that can

help you find winning affiliate programs to promote for your

success!

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