There are a number of various payout structures in affiliate marketing. See below a list of these together with a brief description:
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
- An advertiser pays a fixed amount per successful lead delivered
- This model demands high quality leads because if the leads do not convert the advertiser ends up paying for zero value
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- An advertiser pays a certain amount for each SALE that is made on leads delivered
- A common model is to pay ‘2P’
- P refers to the premium amount
- If a Life Insurer sells a life product with a monthly premium of R500, the affiliate will be paid R1000 (R500 x 2)
Cost Per Sale (CPS)
- This works in a similar fashion to a CPA model except it is tailored to e-commerce offers
- The retailer pays an agreed % of sale to affiliates
- Let’s say an affiliate directs a customer to netflorist.co.za and this customer makes a purchase of R1000; and the agreement is that NetFlorist pays 10% of sale value
- The affiliate will be paid R100 (R1000 x 10%) for the sale
Cost Per Click (CPC)
- An advertiser pay’s an affiliate for each click on their ad
- The ad could be a banner/email or text link, it depends on what the agreement with the advertiser
- IN most cases only unique clicks are paid for, meaning if the same person clicks on an ad 5 times the affiliate will only be paid once