Instead of focusing on selling a product, I am thinking of creating a small website targeting very long tail keywords for some affiliate networks that pay by lead instead of by sale. If I decide to do this, then it will be the first time that I will be trying out a different type of affiliate network and I have one serious question about this...when you sell a product, you get a commission and if the buyer decides to ask for a refund, you lose the commission. However as far as my (limited) knowledge about lead affiliates is concerned, you send in visitors to the service page and you get a commission if they fill up a form on the "sales" page. My question is..will I lose the commission if the visitor who had initially filled up the form then decides that he does not want to take up the service?
Tricky question. 1. If the leads are of low quality they not get counted. 2. If the conversion ratio from your leads are too low, the advertiser might decide to ban you from promoting his offers. 3. If you provide high quality converting leads then you're absolutely fine. The advertisers already know that not all leads will convert to money for them. But they also know that they need to achieve a certain % of leads converting to money so that they do not lose money advertising. As long as you send real visitors that are genuinely interested in the offers you will be fine.
Sounds like you're referring to CPA (Cost per lead) offers where you get paid for getting people to submit their email addresses and other info.. They track the quality of your traffic. If you fall below a certain quality score, you will be banned from that offer. If you continue to provide low quality leads, your account will most likely be terminated...
It's a balance. Depending on the set-up of a CPA site, the conversion may be 10x greater than a pay per sale site, but the quality of the leads 10x worse. Design a site where most or all the leads are going to be good quality, and you'll be alright.