Can someone please give me some clarification as to what all the different affiliate models really mean. I know of: pay-per-sale (paid a % or $ for every sale that originate from you link?) pay-per-lead (something like ebay offers?) pay-per-click (similar to adsense) pay-per-view (I guess this is like banner advertising) revenue sharing (similar to pay-per-sale?) 1 tier, 2 tier, multitier (these are more obvious) Did I miss anything, and is my understanding correct? thanks.
Pay per sale = Paid % or set amount of $ per sale that originate from your referral link. Pay per lead/action = Paid set amount of $ per lead/action/download/registration/etc that originate from your referral link. Pay per click = Paid variable or set amount per click - example: AdSense. Pay per view / cost per 1000 impressions = Every impression is 1 hit I believe..and for 1000 impressions you receive a certain cpm rate which can vary network to network from $0.20-0.40 (banner ads) or it can get a lot higher up to $0.90-1.50 per 1000 impressions (pop ups, pop unders)
There are some advantages to Pay Per lead. Customer does not need to spend any money so it's a quicker and more impulsive decision. It's usually just fill out a lead form - most often for financial products like loans, insurance, credit cards - not always but those are most popular. One advantage to lead based programs IMHO is with the growing cookie deletion problem. Since it's more of an immediate thing as opposed to some product purchases where consumers typically shop and compare for a long time before buying, your cookie is more likely to get tracked. The disadvantage is the most popular and high paying lead programs like mortgage loans and insurance are VERY competitive in the search engines.