Will Pay Per Click Cause the Decline of Affiliate Programs?
by Kathy Burns-Millyard
Years ago, webmasters were able to make money much easier on their
websites. Banner ads were all the rage, and money was earned from
clicks and views. In other words - no sale had to actually be made in
order for the webmaster to earn income.
CPC - or Cost Per Click - was a fairly common earnings method. All the
webmaster had to do was put up a banner or two, and bring traffic to
the website. If anyone actually clicked on the banner, that webmaster
would earn money. Maybe just a penny, or maybe a high as $1... it all
depended on a variety of things.
CPM - otherwise known as Cost Per Million - is a bit misleading
because it actually stands for "every 1000 views". This method was
possibly the most popular of all income generation strategies, because
nothing had to really happen. Yes technically the webmaster had to put
up banners, and then they had to drive traffic to their site... but
they were paid just because the banners were displayed. No one had to
click it. No one had to actually buy anything. So webmasters went
about agressively driving massive amounts of traffic to their site.
Now at one point during it's heyday, CPM was very lucrative. If I
remember correctly, some websites earned $10-$20 for every 1000 times
a banner was displayed. I personally remember making $1500-$2500 a
month on a Palm Pilot software site I owned... strictly from banner ad
views.
Now these two earnings methods have fallen by the wayside in the past
couple of years. CPC didn't last long because there was a high level
of fraud unfortunately. And CPM bottomed out about the same time as
the dot com bust.
To compensate... affiliate programs became all the rage. Advertisers
loved the concept because they only paid someone after they made money
themselves. Publishers and webmasters didn't really have alternative
options, and they came to enjoy the high commission percentages
offered by many agressive affiliate programs. After all, being paid
twenty-five bucks was much more exciting than a nickel.
Over the past year or two though, the web has become saturated with
affiliate programs. Some good, some bad. Some pay really well and some
are a joke. Webmasters and publishers have also come to a realization:
They have little control over how many sales are made. Sure they can
send 100,000 visitors to their affiliate merchant, but if that
merchant's sales copy does not convert... they've wasted the visitors.
At the same time though... Pay Per Click Search Engines have emerged -
with a bang. Google Adwords are particularly popular, as is Overture.
And hundreds of others are cropping up all over the web. This new
trend is actually a winning prospect for webmasters and publishers, in
two very distinct ways:
1. PPC Search Engines can be used to drive targeted traffic to your
website. Costs range from really cheap to moderate in most cases.
2. PPC Search Engines are now starting to pay Webmasters and
Publishers to run these ads on their own websites... and they're
paying for clicks.
That's right. Once again, no sale actually has to be made in order for
the publisher to make money. And many web publishers are already
catching on. You've probably noticed many content rich sites with
Google AdWords on them lately, right? That's an example of this new
trend in action. Any site visitor who clicks on a Google AdWord will
earn the site's owner income... without having to actually spend a
dime themselves.
Now as I said earlier, there are literally hundreds of PPC Search
Engines cropping up across the web. And most of them are offering
revenue share with webmasters and publishers. Too many of them are so
new though, that they aren't even worth the time to sign up for yet.
But several of these are quite profitable... and growing larger by the
day.
As this wave catches on (again), I have to wonder if we'll see a
decline in affiliate marketing efforts. What do you think?
- Kathy
© 2004, Kathy Burns-Millyard. All Rights Reserved.
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