The world is fast changing and so the way of earning money. Earlier, passive money was a taboo for the business world. The corporate used to treat the passive business as a part-time earning option. Affiliate programs or website monetization is the key source of passive business. It is trending in the chart and is attracting publishers and affiliates globally. Before scrutinizing the pros and cons of affiliate programs, let me simplify it for you.
Affiliate Marketing – Advertisers and Publishers Connection
When I made money with affiliate programs, it was a contemporary concept. People were still trying to grasp the zest of such earning. Today, over 80% business runs on affiliate marketing. It is a relationship between a website owner (publishers) and the affiliates (advertisers) where publishers allow the advertisers to publish adds on their website in return of money in the form of commission.
Pros and Cons of Affiliate Program
It will be an exaggeration to say that anyone can make money with affiliate program. Like all other business, affiliate marketing has its own forte and dimness. You cannot expect to earn affluence if you are oblivious to the pros and cons of a business.
So, here I have shortlisted some conventional pros and cons of affiliate programs that will help you in your passive business endeavor.
Pros of Affiliate Programs
1. A Beginner with a Little Knowledge of Website Optimization Can Do This:
You need not to be a pro marketer to make money with affiliate programs.
If you know a little bit of optimizing your website on search engines and social media, if you are creative, and if you have charms to lure visitors to your site, you are the right person for this business. Website monetization depends on the number of clicks you can get in the advertisement on your website or blog. Visitors are directly proportional to the earnings through affiliate programs.
2. Flexibility to Earn:
Affiliate programs are a hot cake among the people who work on and around the internet, especially bloggers and internet marketing professionals because of the flexibility to earn.
You can monetize the affiliate earning through the following three reward types:
- Pay-per-Lead (PPL): When a visitor clicks the advertisement published on your website and fills a contact form providing his/her personal information, you get the reward for your referral.
- Pay-per-Sale (PPS): You earn a percentage of a purchase if a website visitor on your website clicks on an advertisement and buys from the referral link.
- Pay-per-Click (PPC): You earn from the number of clicks your website visitors do on any published advertisement on your website.
3. Deviate Website Monetization:
I think it is the biggest strength of the affiliate marketer or the publisher. You can make money with affiliate program by allowing different advertisers to publish ads on your same website at the same time.
Yes, you need not to be loyal to only one advertiser at a time. You can channel your earnings through various advertisements and can maximize your profit.
4. Lowest or No Capital Involved:
Can you think of a capital free business? Affiliate programs are a good opportunity for people having skills but no or less money to invest. You need not to invest in website monetization.
Numerous websites offer free hosting to your blog or website. You can start with a free hosting and move to a paid one later when you start earning. It does not affect your ways to make money with affiliate program.
Cons of Affiliate Programs
1. Aggressive Market:
Affiliate programs are a low barrier market. It allows spaces for every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Naturally, that increases the fierce competition. You cannot have a smooth earning if you take website monetization recklessly.
To become an ace of the affiliate programs game, you need to enhance your creativity and have an eagle’s eyes on your website traffic.
2. Slow Growth:
If you think to have a Midas touch the moment, you start affiliate marketing; the daydream will ruin you. Making money with affiliate program has a snail’s pace.
For a beginner, the money comes after 5-6 months of starting the website monetization. Many factors like persistence, patience, loyal visitors, a smart strategy etc. decide the flow of money and the breaking point.
3. Fraud Advertising Agencies:
Yes, it happens. You cannot have a heedless attitude while choosing advertisers or online advertising agencies unless you are partnering with the big fish of the market like Google Adsense.
There are scammers everywhere. It might be possible that after advertising for so many days and getting so many hits and customers from the published ads on your website, the advertiser suddenly runaway blocking you and without paying you the commission. So, before finalizing your advertising agency, checking their past performance and other publisher’s reviews and feedback are necessary.
4. Risk Associated:
Do not forget that the advertisers will pay you only when they get traffic or sales from the ads published on your website.
That dumps all the burdens of optimizing your website and getting high traffic on your shoulder. Regardless of directing massive traffic to the advertisements from your website, you cannot have a guaranteed earning.
5. Misleading Advertisement:
When visitors click the link or a banner of an advertisement on your website, they trust you. If that leads to some misleading advertisement, your brand value will suffer.
It can negatively influence your website traffic or you might lose the visitors’ loyalty. Affiliate programs can be a curse for your blog site if you allow misleading advertisements on your website. You need a do a regular check of all the advertisements you publish on your websites.
Conclusion:
Every 9 out of 10 publishers allow multiple advertisers to provide ads on their websites to earn the most from publishing those ads. No brainer, affiliate programs are the new way of earning income from your living room. Like every other business, it has its own “for and against”. However, making money through affiliate program has more positive points than the cons.
There is no shortcut to earning billions through website monetization. Although it is one of the greatest passive incomes, you need to have an open sense organ. To become a successful affiliate marketer, patience and persistence are the two significant keys. If you understand the pros and cons of affiliate programs, you can make good money with it. You can read more about Affilight features here.
To conclude this, I suggest doing your research carefully regarding becoming a publishing partner of an advertising agency. Also, do not forget to do a regular check on your earnings through referrals and the link of the advertisers. The quick removal of faulty links and a planned strategy of earning through website monetization will definitely lead you towards a successful future in affiliate programs.