Pay per sale affiliate programs are the most common type you’ll find on the Internet because there are so many e-tailers. The programs are based around you referring visitors (potential buyers) to a merchants website and being paid a commission when the visitor buys a product or a service from the merchant. Commissions can be earned as a flat fee (mostly related to the sale of services) or as a percentage of a sale. Commissions based on sales percentages are much more common and can range anywhere from 1% to up of 75%. What you’ll find is that most of the big e-tailors that have affiliate programs with a lot of affiliates, like Amazon or Dell for example, will pay out low percentage commissions because of the volume that they deal with. In contrast, there are a lot of smaller companies that sell information products, community subscriptions and downloadable software where commissions are much higher per sale. E-Harmony is a great example of an affiliate program that pays huge commissions for each sign up - the last time I checked they awarded their affiliates 100% of the sign up fee, which comes to around $100 a sign up….that’s a great payout just for someone clicking through! You can see how the numbers would add up quickly for high performing affiliates who have sites that draw thousands of visitors a day. Of course, that’s a double edged sword - really great affiliate programs draw a LOT of affiliates and competition can be fierce, so chose your programs wisely and spend time developing sites where you can stack up to the competition. Here are some quick tips for finding good pay per sale affiliate programs.

Focus Your Efforts On Big Ticket, Popular Items With Large Payouts

Amazon books, for example, are good sellers and it’s easy to find products related to your niche, but it’s my experience that most people like to buy books used and only buy them one at a time, which cuts into your commission percentages. Because Amazon’s affiliate program is only paying out a small percentage on books (around 3%), you’re only looking to get around 30 cents for a $10 book, which, if you’re not getting huge traffic, translates to you making coffee money, not mortgage money. Referring one lonely person to eHarmony for a $100 signup, or a hot rot enthusiast to spend a $2500 on a set of new rims (with a free shipping incentive), by contrast, can be much more lucrative. There are affiliate programs in almost every niche, so your options are endless. The point is, chose wisely and spend time promoting good products that’ll get you better payouts.

Find Affiliate Programs With Good Creatives and Built-In Incentives

You didn’t think you were going to be alone in this game did you? You’ll be happy to find out that you aren’t. The good merchants do a lot of up-front work for their affiliates by providing them with eye-catching graphical banners and buttons (a.k.a “creatives”) as well as giving them access to exclusive deals that help sell their products. It’s just a matter of you going to the affiliate program’s site, logging in, chosing the creative and cutting and pasting the code into you page! The free shipping on car parts deal that I mentioned above, for example, is a very common incentive offered by auto part retailers that sell in large volumes over the web. A good, eye-catching creative banner that blinks “FREE SHIPPING ON ALL CAR PARTS” can really tip the scales in your favor. Remember that people are on the web to find deals they don’t get by going into stores. On the flip side, e-tailors make a much bigger margin selling their products over the web because they don’t have to spend money running a brick-and-mortar business. The result is that e-tailors have a greater incentive to spend a lot more on their affiliates to drive sales.

Commission Structure Matters

Some affiliate programs don’t just pay you a commission based on the visitors you refer, they also pay you when an affiliate who signed up through you refers a visitor. These are called two-tier affiliate programs. They’re great because your earnings base can grow exponentially if affiliates who signed up through you perform well referring visitors. A great example of this is Deal Dot Com. Whenever you refer someone to Deal Dot Com through your affiliate link, you get paid 35% of Deal Dot Com’s profit for every item that they buy. If someone you referred to Deal Dot Com refers someone else, you get paid 15% of Deal Dot Com’s profit every time they buy something for the rest of your life.

You can sign up here for Deal Dot Com’s Affiliate Program For Free.

Good Writing That Encourages Your Visitors To Buy Multiple Items At Once Makes A Big Difference

You’ll hear the term “Pre-Sell” a lot as you learn more about what it takes to be a high performing affiliate. “Pre-selling” is what affiliate marketing is. You want the visitors you refer to be completely amped to buy the product before they even get the merchant’s website - thus PRE-SELL. Providing visitors with good informational content in conjunction with marketing items that are commonly bought in pairs or groups are the best ways to boost your earnings. A good example of common group buys are photo printers, cartridges and photopaper. Remember, you earn a percentage of the total sale.

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