You have probably heard about affiliate programs on pages like Amazon and Shopzilla, but what really is affiliate marketing and how can I use affiliate marketing to my own advantage?

Affiliate marketing is probably the most common revenue earners for blog owners. There are potentially three basic affiliate payouts, pay per click, pay per sale, and pay per lead. Each with it’s own individual aspect of potentially earning lots.

Pay Per Click (PPC) – PPC is the most commonly used payout method among bloggers. You have probably heard of big publisher companies such as Google AdSense or Chikita, they are examples of affiliate PPC. It is as it sounds, whenever a viewer clicks on your advertisements, you generate revenue.

Pay Per Sale – Pay per sale is probably the most well known due to Amazon’s successful affiliate program, which rocket launched the campaign of pay per sale marketing. You refer friends or family members through your affiliate link and you generate a certain percentage of revenue from the product you technically sold.

Pay Per Lead – Pay per lead is probably the most tactical method of them all. Generally pay per leads are used to build up memberships to a new web page, and to furthermore promote their site. If you ever sign up for a pay per lead affiliate, your objective is to refer friends. Nowadays people refer pay per lead as referral programs instead, and whenever you successfully refer a friend, you usually generate some typical payout for each referral.

Affiliate marketing is what it is described in the illustration above. Basically you act as the sales men and you are promoting a company’s product in return for some commission with per pay per lead, pay per click, or pay per whatever. It is a commonly used tactic for one with daily readers to monetize their site; like for example, I use Google AdSense to generate some revenue via pay per click.

The right promotion and audience is the key to earning lots from affiliate marketing. Everyone has different tactics and techniques with strings attached to affiliate marketing. Some say mixing in PPC and pay per lead is the best, and some say pay per sale and pay per lead is the best. Affiliate marketing is a miss and match game that you can play with. Everyone has different results, so it is up to a person’s own judgment to say which is the best money earner for them selves. There is really no wrong method to earning with affiliate marketing, but rather which is the right equiped for your site.