I have tried a lot of different types of affiliate marketing.

All of them “work”, but some will be a lot more profitable than others for you depending on your own business.

So in this article, I’ll be covering 5 different types of commissions you can earn, along with the pros and cons of each. All of course in my opinion.

Keep in mind that this is a limited selection based on my own experience and that there are many other programs out there.

Physical Products (via Amazon.com)

Personally, most of the products that I buy online are from Amazon.com and they are physical products.

Yes, I buy digital and other products from elsewhere but physical products, something I can feel and touch and see in my mailbox or on my front doorstep, is something I’m more likely to buy.

Many other people out there are similar to me, so it’s not surprising that eCommerce (physical product) sales are very high online.

Physical products can be just about anything including vacuum cleaners, TV sets, chopping blocks, vitamins, exercise equipment, books, etc.

The problem, however, as an affiliate of these kinds of products, is that Amazon pays out such a low commission on each sale.

Personally, I make a very small amount of commissions each month from Amazon, but in some circumstances, it’s the ideal choice for the type of product that I want to promote. To become an affiliate with Amazon it’s very easy.

Here are the Pros and Cons in my opinion:

Pros:

– Lots of products to choose from.

– Compared to purchasing inventory and so forth, being an affiliate means you are just the middle man, so there are lower costs and it’s a simpler model.

– If you already have physical products that are selling well, then this can be the ideal ‘backend’ to those eCommerce sales. For example, if you already sell chopping blocks on Amazon or via your own eCommerce store, you can offer your customers a link to a recommended set of knives on Amazon and make commissions on those sales. Easy to become an affiliate.

Cons:

– Low Commissions, this is a big problem. That’s why I like High Ticket Products like John Thornhills Coaching Program

– Cookies only a short time. Please check out, So if someone clicks your cookie and then they purchase 2 days later, you don’t get the commission.

CPA ( Cost Per Action)

CPA marketing involves the lead taking an action, usually in the form of filling out a form, getting a quite, making a small purchase, or filling out a form.

The owner of the offer pays out a commission for each lead you send through their system who successfully completes the ‘action’.

There are some decent offers around that will earn $45-60 per action (usually a sale), but they’re rare, and typically you’d be looking at a few dollars each.

Pros:

– Often no refunds.

– Some offers provide commissions for leads, not just sales.

Cons:

– Usually pretty low commissions (there are some exceptions). That’s why I like high ticket coaching programs like Automation & Success: Get Access to the Webinar.

– Some offers are tricky to convert because they require the visitor to submit a lot of info (annual income, education level, phone number, etc)

Low Ticket

There are a lot of low ticket offers out there, but keep in mind most of them were created in order for the vendor to build a list of customers.

It’s important to do your research, and check the product you plan on promoting is high quality. A good choice is Clickbank. Watch this Webinar

To check, either purchase a copy or ask the vendor or affiliate manager for a review copy.

If you only stick to higher quality offers, it will pay off in the long run, as you won’t be seen as someone who’s just trying to push people to any old offer to make a sale.

Pros:

– A lot of offers to promote.

– Many offers include upsells.

– Low ticket is often an easy point of entry for making some quick sales.

Cons:

– Can be tricky finding high-quality offers.

– Some offers have high refund rates.

Recurring Billing

Recurring billing offers are a great way to generate ongoing commissions that keep coming in for months or even years after you’ve promoted.

If you’re able to tap into even just a tiny percentage of that, you can make a killing. Plus your efforts to make even just ONE sale turns into multiple commissions as each rebill comes in.

Examples: Web Hosting (bluehost.com), All autoresponders like Getresponds or Aweber or Programs from the TOP 1% Sellers:

Click Here to watch his Webinar

Pros:

– Usually low refund rate.

– Often high quality (many vendors constantly improve the product to raise the stick rate).

– Recurring commissions are great – eg. receiving money for something you may have even forgotten about

Cons:

– Some products don’t have great stick rates.

– Can be tricky to initially forecast earnings until stats start coming in.

High Ticket ( my favorite !)

High ticket offers are usually digitally delivered and sell for a higher price.

They are comprehensive offers like coaching programs, high-value software, and so forth.

They exist in a number of niches, for example, a coaching program on “Automation & Success” in personal development, may sell for $497.-, an 8-week online weight loss Bootcamp may sell for $997.-, or a product that shows users how to build an online business by following the founder’s own model, may sell for $2500-$10,000.

And these offers typically pay out a 50% commission.
They sell for a higher price because a lot more time goes into their creation (videos, software, possibly a members group, etc), and into their customer service, than what goes into a low ticket product. Plus also the higher price serves to limit the number of people they need to offer support to, and means that can be of a higher quality.

A very good example is John Thornhills Coaching Program:

Click Here for the Webinar

Pros:

– It only takes 2 sales a week of a $2.5k product to make 100k+ per year.

– If it’s a high-quality product, with a great webinar, and lots of successful students, then usually conversions to sales can be very high (e.g. you get 100 people to a webinar and 5 may purchase a $2500 product).

– You don’t need to have a list. You can run paid traffic directly to an article, video or quiz, that then simply leads to a webinar signup page provided by the vendor. If you run paid traffic to this, then that’s all you need to do in order to get the ball rolling.

– It’s a great way to monetize the building of your list. If you want to have a list, but don’t know how to monetize it, then one way is to make an optin page, and on the ‘thank you page’ where people get to download their free gift from you (a report, or audio track or something), you can also recommend a relevant webinar as Click Here to watch this Webinar for them to sign up to (via your affiliate link).

Cons:

– There are a lot of poor quality programs out there, and for people who are new to earning commissions, it can be very hard to decipher which is a quality program to promote and which is not. It’s important to be picky, as your potential buyers are spending a lot of money here and it needs to be a high-quality program.

– Mindset. Often newbies feel that lower ticket = easier, and higher ticket = harder. Though they are not easier, nor harder, they are just ‘different.’ Yes it’s easier to make a low ticket sale, but it’s not necessarily easier to make 50 sales at $50 a sale than it is to make ONE sale at $3000.

Conclusion:

Go for High Ticket Sales!

Stefan Misteli / Student VIP Ambassador Program

This is a guest post from Stefan Misteli, if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.


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