Pay Per Click Affiliate Programs

Pay per click affiliate programs are one of the methods by which ecommerce companies can add thousands of dollars in profits to monthly bottom lines with no more than an agreement to rent out part of the company's first page website to other companies' advertisements. Colleague networks, including pay per click affiliate programs are the new twist on the centuries old customer referral plan that had served so many well run and highly respected companies. Of course, the most high tech the traditional customer referral plan ever got might have been the president of an investment firm referring a favorite car salesman to another businessman while both were on the golf course. One exception might be the deal that a shaving cream company might have struck with a family living along a highway to put up a series of story telling signs promoting its product on the family's land. The president of the company might have received a few hundred dollars from the salesman for the referral and the family might have gotten two years supply of shaving cream, but in most cases, there would always be something in it for the referrer.

Today the Internet reigns supreme in its ability to reach people but the problem of advertising is more complicated than ever before. How does any company seeking notoriety and profit become known in a book that contains an estimated five billion pages and growing every day? Even a General Motors can get lost in such a sea. Since customer referrals are still an important part of business, the emergence of new advertising tactics such as pay per click affiliate programs have arisen to the fore. This Internet specific advertising method enables any ecommerce company to gain a name presence across the vast World Wide Web in a back handed referral plan that can increase a company's bottom line.

It is back handed in the sense that the referring company may really know nothing about the company it is allowing to advertise on its website. After all, this is all about money, and often very little about reputation or integrity. Pay per click affiliate programs are one way that Internet website owners are compensated for willingness to rent a square inch of he company's website screen space to another company. In reality the website owners are granting permission for visitors to leave their site for one that appears more interesting or more useful, all for a fee of course. Would you like to have wonderful and meaningful words to offer God when you have sinned? "Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me no away from thy presence and renew a right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10-11)

Pay per click affiliate programs are built on commonality between certain companies and industries. There are affiliate programs relating to computers, car insurance, loan consolidation, food, ecommerce and almost any subject imaginable. When a person searches for those websites related to computers for example, those websites will often have sponsored links to other companies that may be strongly related to the computer industry (software programs), or remotely related (resort cabins that have computers). In any case, the sponsored links will pay the web hosts a set amount of money based on each click of a user's mouse. Pay per click affiliate programs are a network of sites based on mouse clicks that open link portals.

For example, a user searching for a computer hardware replacement lands at a website selling the part he needs. Before exiting the site the customer sees the link to an educational website that offers computer aided drafting classes online. When the user clicks on that link and moves to the educational provider, the computer hardware company is paid twenty five cents for the action. Many companies make hundreds and even thousands of dollars each month as visitors to their sites mouse click on links to other addresses. If an entire network, such as a computer related affiliate program is based on a per click basis, then they are known as pay per click affiliate programs.

There are other ways that cooperating or colleague companies can compensate those who host a link to their company's site. Besides the pay per click affiliate programs, there is the pay per action option. This is compensation for the actions taken by the visitor requested by the website. For example, it is often requested by a site that a requester for information fill out a field of information such as email address, phone, name, etc. This information can be very valuable to the company requesting the data. If as a result of a visitor not only clicking on a link to their website but also taking some form of action such as data requests, the host company can receive an even larger compensation. All of the numbers depend on prearranged monetary agreements among affiliates.

There is a final method that is typically used for affiliate programs and that is the straight commission. In most cases, the commission is based on large cost items such as cars or loans or other more expensive purchases. For example our computer friend has looked at a company that provides computer aided drafting classes. Now he wonders how he will pay for it and then sees a sponsored link for a loan company at the drafting website. He clicks on that site and ends up getting a ten thousand dollar loan for his drafting classes. The educational site gets a five hundred dollar commission for the agreed to loan. Pay per click or pay for the done deal, it's all money in the bank.