What Do Affiliate Programs Pay in 2024?

17 April 2024 636 0

What affiliate programs pay varies from program to program. That’s why it’s important to research thoroughly when picking which affiliate programs to promote.

Contents hide

1 What To Watch Out For When Picking Affiliate Program

2 Key Points

3 How Affiliate Programs Pay-out

4 Conclusion

The highest paying affiliate programs are often low volume. Whereas low pay-outs are often high volume. Often, trading affiliate programs and gambling affiliate programs have some of the highest CPA’s. Trading 212’s affiliate program offers a CPA of up to £1000. Although a healthy CPA is important, relevancy is even more important. Rather than focusing too much on the highest CPA, what will yield you better returns is if you pick a program that best suits your content, as this will easily convert traffic into sales. With the affiliate marketing industry growing, individuals and affiliates within that industry will see the potential earning increase.

Many high paying affiliate programs are B2B affiliate programs. This is where you are promoting a product or service to a fellow business rather than the end consumer.

For example, if you have a blogger which has business owners as readers, it maybe worth looking at B2B affiliate programs. An example of a B2B affiliate program is SEMrush the well known SEO tool offers their affiliates $200 for every new subscription.

What To Watch Out For When Picking Affiliate Program

Many affiliate programs advertise their “Up To” commission number to get as many affiliates through the door as possible. Meaning they promote a CPA, CPL, or CPC that realistically won’t be able to be achieved for a first time/ starting affiliate. An example of this is WP Engine who advertise their CPA as $15,475, on the face of it picking this program appears to be a no brainer. On the other hand, when you look a bit closer you see firstly the affiliate needs must achieve 60 monthly sales and a user must spend nearly double the amount a normal user would spend. Now, this is not to say it’s not achievable but for many affiliates, the better options maybe to opt for a program with a smaller commission that will enable easier conversion.

Promote High Ticket Products. Often, high-priced products are overlooked when determining the best products for affiliate marketing. However, if you truly believe the product solves a problem many people are experiencing, then you can promote the higher-priced product. To earn $1,000 in affiliate revenue, you need to sell 100 products worth $10, 10 products worth $100, or one product worth $1,000.

Consider the Cookie Duration. When selecting the right affiliate programs, the cookie duration is an important factor to consider, as it determines the validity of your relationship with referred users. Say, for example, a brand sets a 20-day cookie period. Visitors who purchase before a cookie expire will be eligible for commissions. Therefore, affiliates must select programs that offer longer cookie lifespans.

A Quality Support Service. The success of an affiliate program depends on a vendor who offers a good affiliate program and good customer support. Thus if problems arise, you can contact the vendor for peace of mind. Vendors can offer support in various ways, from a dedicated account manager to live chat and email support.

Key Points

· Many affiliate programs will display their *Up To price. Always read the T&S and do some more digging.

· Don’t just go with the affiliate program offering the highest CPA. Consider other factors such as cookie life span and monthly bonuses.

· Most importantly pick an affiliate program which best suits your users/readers.

How Affiliate Programs Pay-out

The Cost Per (CPA) isn’t the only thing that changes from program to program. How the merchants pay their affiliates can also change, not all programs only pay a commission once the transaction is complete, otherwise known as CPA. You also have Cost per Lead (CPL), Cost per Click (CPC), and even Per App Install (CPI).

Cost per lead (CPL) is where the affiliate is paid commission once they provide the merchant with a lead. This can mean when a user has filled out a contact form, requested a quote, or signups for a free trial. Both B2B and B2C offer CPL models. Freshbook, an accounting software primarily for SME’s and sole traders, offers $5 per free trial signup. In the B2C sector, large brands like Comparethemarket also offer the CPL model, paying affiliates between £1 to £4 per lead. The benefit this pricing model offers is that you don’t have to take the user through the full purchasing journey. It also takes away the main pain points such as a user entering payment details, where the main drop off in users occurs.

Another pricing model is Cost Per Click (CPC) is a pricing model in which the affiliate receives a commission, simply every time their affiliate link is clicked. The positive for CPC affiliate programs is that they tend to be a much easier conversion, but affiliates receive a smaller amount of commission. Cost Per Click is a commission model often used in the travel industry. Many tour operators use the pricing model as their business model relies on a large amount of traffic going through their site to book. Kayak offers affiliates up to $0.95 per click. Many affiliate Networks have also adopted the commission model. Such as Skimlinks and Tradedoubler help run a small number of CPC campaigns.

The final pricing model is Cost Per Install (CPI), not as commonly used as the previously mentioned models but one worth looking at. In this model, the affiliate received a commission when a user has successfully installed the app, via the affiliate link. One example of this is, Skyscanner who offer $1 CPI for each referred visitor that installs their Android or Apple iOS app on their mobile device. As more brands look to increase the presence on mobile this model may become more popular in the future.

Finding the balance between the right commission and commission structure is important in finding the right affiliate program for you.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the question of What affiliate programs pay cannot be answered with a single figure. Painting all affiliate programs with this same brush is a mistake that many first time affiliates make. The key to running the most profitable affiliate campaign is not just to get drawn in by the largest CPA, CPL or CPC, but investigate deeper and compare other important aspects of the affiliate program. Most importantly, find the affiliate program that best matches your audience, as in the long run they will yield a much greater ROI.

For more tips, visit our homepage and compare hundreds of affiliate programs and see which affiliate program fits you best.