What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is a system of advertising in which site A agrees to feature text ads or graphic buttons from site B, and site A gets a commision on any sales generated for site B.

In layman's terms, a direct sales force. You are an independent contractors to selling another person's products for a percentage of the sales price.

Major Types of Affiliate Programs

• Pay Per Click
• Pay Per Sale
• Pay Per Lead

Pay Per Click:
This type of advertising was quite popular a few years ago but with a few exceptions has basically vanished from the face of the earth. Sure you can find some companies who will still pay you by this method. Many search engines use this method to gain more visitors to their site.

How does it work?

Usually this works off a banner or link system. Just as it sounds, for each unique visitor the company receives from the visitor clicking on your link, they will pay you a set amount. Some pay upwards of a $1.00 while others may pay only $.04.

Although, this may not sound like much, when you have thousands of people clicking on your links, you can acquire quite a large commission check. The company is in jeopardy if their site does not convert well ie, does not make any money from the actual visitor.

Pay Per Sale:
This is by far the most popular type of affiliate programs and the one Africa Point is concentrating its efforts on. Basically, you pay affiliates only when they produce a sale for you.

How does it work?

This system is rather simple. The affiliate utilizes banners or text links with which they can advertise from their website or online newsletters. Unlike the previous example, when a person clicks on the affiliate's link the affiliate earns nothing. Only when a person has purchased a product or a service will the affiliate earn a commission.

You can have one tier or two tier affiliate programs. One tier pays only the referring affiliate for the sale. A two tier system pays the referring affiliate and also the affiliate who has referred the referring affiliate to you. Africa Point affiliate program is based on the one tier system.

Pay Per Impression
In this type of system you get paid for simply displaying a banner on your website. Each time the banner loads, you get paid.

How does it work?

You host a banner at your site or sites, and the company will pay for every person who simply views it. That means, you get paid just for a pair of eyes looking at the banner. The person doesn’t need to buy anything or even click through the link.