Finding Good PPC Affiliate Marketing Programs

PPC affiliate marketing programs, while harder to find, are still very much around. Most affiliate programs have been focusing their attention on pay per action affiliate programs (pay per sale or pay per lead) but Pay per click (PPC) affiliate marketing programs are still quite capable of helping you earn a good income. PPC affiliate marketing programs can be used very effectively as part of a multi-pronged internet marketing approach to help your online business thrive.

The advantages to a PPC affiliate marketing program have to do with the general ease and speed at which they can be set up and seeing results. They are also easy to maintain. You can see commissions coming in whether the customer buys or not. PPC affiliate programs are also useful when you are targeting a general audience and you can't find a specific product or service that your visitors might be interested in. This is in comparison to pay per action affiliate programs where you need to specifically target a product to show your visitor.

The disadvantages to a PPC affiliate marketing program are that if your site is too narrowly focused on a certain niche, it may not reach the broad number of visitors that you might need to be reaching to see good commissions. Also the pay rate is a good deal smaller than pay per action affiliate programs. Your probability of getting commissions is higher because all they need to do is click but you don't see near the commission rates that you do with pay per action. Your click through rate has to be high for you to see significant results. Volume is king. There have also been problems with some affiliate programs holding off on commission payments and have canceled some site's memberships in their affiliate programs.

Trying to decide on a good PPC affiliate marketing program can be pretty challenging. There are some things that you an look for to help decide what will have the best impact on your efforts.

1) How do they count the click throughs? You may have to look hard for this information because it might be something that they gloss over. Most programs will pay you for each unique IP address in a 24 hour period. Avoid ones that are more than 48 hours.

2) How much do they pay per click? Expect to see anywhere from $0.01-.20 per click but avoid agreements at either end of that spectrum or at least be skeptical. The low end may be too much work for too little pay and the high end may make big promises but may not have a good reputation of paying people what they are supposed to. Check their payment history.

3) What does it take to stat a member in good standing. Each program will have it's own guidelines on what is or isn't acceptable practices and will say that they can cancel your sites membership at any moment if your site is possibly cheating. This is understandable but they may have caps on the amounts of click throughs and may suspect you of being less than honest if you exceed that.

Check their terms and conditions and read all the fine print. Investigate them and look for complaints. PPC affiliate marketing programs can be quite lucrative but they can also be a lot of work.