I dabble around in affiliate marketing and am no expert by any means but the difference between EPC and Affiliate sales (CPA) is pretty crazy if you think about it. For an example, I wrote about a product the other day but at the time the affiliate program that I signed up for didn’t get back to me by the time I wrote about it. So in the mean time, I used a company that paid based upon Clicks instead of Sales.
Consider it like domain parking (links) compared to developing with your own product or service or using affiliate links that pay based on sales and not just clicks.
What is the difference?
Ebay Partner Network pays on a EPC (Earnings Per Click) bases. On average the EPC is about $0.14 per click currently. Very similar to Google Adsense, but for me, my EPC for Google Adsense is MUCH higher than the EPN system but again this depends on keywords.
Once I was approved for the affiliate program that I was waiting for, I was reassured WHY I applied for the affiliate program instead of using an EPC program.
What is the affiliate program payout? $14.00 per sale! (CPA is Cost Per Action, which is basically a sale if you are promoting a product but it could be a sign up etc.)
When you have a direct audience and you do your job correctly with linking, images etc. affiliate programs often do pretty well. This means you do not need a ton of clicks to convert to a sale.
Doing the math is pretty easy using a EPC program VS Affiliate Program and in the case that I am talking about it makes it really easy!
- EPC via Ebay Partner Network = $0.14 Per Click
- Affiliate program pays $14.00 Per Sale
So I would need 100 clicks to earn the $14.00 of one sale using EPC. Yes, one sale can come in from simply 1 click. Conversion rates are not 100% but they can be pretty high if you do your job correctly! Even if you convert on 50% (still pretty high) of the clicks for the affiliate program compared to the EPC program you can notice a HUGE difference in the amount of money you earn.
100 clicks
- EPC program = $14.00
- Affiliate program with a 50% conversion rate = $700
This may be a way to look at Parking VS Developing! Yes, from time to time you get a $3 or $5 click via parking but if you consider affiliate programs that pay on a sale basis and you are taking in those kind of numbers from a CPA program all the time, it makes you rethink parking your domain names getting a EPC style payout.
So the next time you are considering just parking a domain name instead of developing on it, think of the $0.14 VS $14.00 . Not all affiliate programs work perfectly or convert very well and a EPC program my work better but I know we all would rather make $14 instead of $0.14. Your 1 click you get can and often does lead into a sale. Just keep that in mind.
Shane
Jamie,
It’s just not that easy. You can look at it this way as well. You are guaranteed .14 cents no matter what. A 50% sell through would be amazing. Yes you can make a lot more with affiliate programs but if you want to make real money then start an affiliate program
brian k
I think a 1-3 % conversion is more likely on targeted traffic.
That would still mean 14-42 per 100 clicks or .14 -.42 per click
Jamie Zoch
@Shane,
I agree it’s not easy at all. Maybe a “mix” of EPC and CPA would work best? Then you have some guaranteed money through EPC and the shot at the little bigger payout with CPA. Affiliate program owners do seem to do pretty well but I wouldn’t know where to start.
Deke
You also gotta’ factor in all the affilate programs that you try that are run by thieves. There are a many more affiliate thieves than there are legit affiliates.
What you lose trying them has to be taken from the ones that work before you start earning anything.
Leonard Britt
I’m sure some affiliate programs perform better than others but at CJ I had some 700 thousand impressions without even one sale so obviously I am not a big fan of affiliates. I’ve generated a few sales at Amazon but the conversion rate is still abysmal. Adsense earnings depend greatly on the CPC for the keyword but PPC advertising payouts in general still don’t pay the rent
.
I have a website in one small local market and noticed a local newspaper in that market which publicizes its advertising rates online even though its content is distributed primarily in local grocery stores and parks (PR0 site with a total of three inbound links per Yahoo Site Explorer). A 1/4 page color ad on an internal page for one issue runs more than $400! For this bi-weekly newspaper that would translate into roughly $2500/quarter. And this paper has roughly 2/3 ads vs. 1/3 actual news articles. While ad rates are going to depend on viewership or site traffic, landing advertising spots IMO is a better potential payback than the PPC alternatives domainers typically opt for.
Jamie Zoch
@Leonard,
I do not do the best with CJ either. I use them because they have GoDaddy but not much luck with them. Click rates are pretty high but sales lack most months. I did try GoDaddy’s in-house affiliate program and do worse than CJ… why that is, I have no clue. I do best with small affiliate companies for some reason. The downside to the small ones, you end up signing up a lot and waiting to get approved but on the flip side, you get replies promptly if you have any questions.
Yaron
If you develop you can do both – Adsense and cpa.
Anthony
Deke knows – Many aff programs are known for skimming, shaving and capping your sales … its normal since you have no true backend visibility.
Domainer
Where and what type of link you use for an affiliate program is important. Try making your affiliate links look the same as an adsense link. Big G knows what they are doing and have many brilliant people working for them. Banners look nice but convert much less than text links, always have a call to action on a banner on any of your domains.