The Ultimate Guide to PPC Affiliate Programs

by Robert Clough

Joining PPC affiliate programs lets you make money online promoting things you love. You likely do 80-90% of the promotional efforts already.
Each mentioned offer in your content is an opportunity to earn commissions. A PPC affiliate converts those free promotions into lead-generating opportunities.

Want to know how it’s done?

This post will explain the basics of PPC affiliate marketing and how to join programs — plus, ways to begin promoting its offers.

What are PPC Affiliate Programs?

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) affiliate programs are frequently intertwined with Pay-Per-Lead (PPL) programs. In fact, several major affiliate networks blend the two creating confusion. Though, blending also creates a great opportunity to earn.

Here’s an easy way to differentiate the two:

PPC — You get paid if someone clicks an ad/link
PPL — You get paid if someone clicks AND acts (e.g. buys/submits info)

Within an affiliate program are:

Publishers (You)
Advertisers (Brands)

An affiliate network acts as a 3rd party if you decide to partner with brands found on the network.

Why would an affiliate choose one over the other?

PPC ads’ job is enticing a click without the hurdle of conversions. This allows a site owner to make money in a single step. PPC ads pay less than lead-based opportunities. But, they’re effective for a passive income-making model.

To summarize:

You join a PPC affiliate program
You place PPC ads on your site
You earn whenever the ad(s) is clicked

Join both if the advertiser includes PPL within the PPC program. This pays for both click and lead generation.

Part 1: Measuring the Program Qualities

The best PPC affiliate programs have:

Quality control for advertisers and publishers
Respectable payment models
Offers your community would engage

Let’s consider how each benefits your site’s monetization:

Approval Process

Some programs require a traffic/conversion threshold for approval. Other platforms have open enrollment. Find the middle-ground limiting access to improve user quality without strict performance standards.

Payment Methods

Most PPC programs have a Net 30 payment schedule and use ACH and direct deposit for payments. Find a program offering shorter payment periods with low earnings thresholds.

Offer Selection

Your two biggest ad challenges:

Banner blindness
Ad-blocking apps

Great PPC programs offer tried-and-tested creative and copy. This should include an ample selection of banners and contextual links/call-to-actions. Or, access to the design team for custom creative tailored for your website.

Part 2: Finding a Beginner-Friendly Program

Let’s find a PPC program having desired qualities in mind.

ShareASale

ShareASale hosts thousands of brands and online shops. Joining gives partners a suite of tools for tracking and campaign management. Each marketplace program has unique offers and payments organized by industry and niche.

Google Adsense

Google Adsense provides an easy-to-monetize opportunity through a copy & paste code blurb. This displays banner and text ads on your website pulling keywords to match content topics to advertisers.

Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser mirrors Google Adsense with its access to advertisers. Publishers partnering with Bidvertiser gain access to text/banner ads for thousands of brands and online stores.

InfoLinks

InfoLinks provides text-based ad links generated from content keywords and topics. This converts keywords to advertisements automatically upon adding InfoLink code to your website.

Which is Best?

Our four examples are free to join with low thresholds. Each provides publisher tools and an ample selection of branded partnerships. Yet, join and run each for a trial period to measure ad quality and user feedback.

Do the ads match your content topics?
Are the offers enticing and respectable?
Are your visitors clicking the ads?

Review the program’s performance and double-down on its use.

Part 3: Creating PPC Affiliates Conversion

Most PPC affiliate programs pull content keywords to match advertiser ads. This dynamic automation makes it easy to display relevant ads. Yet, PPC platforms aren’t perfect and need refining to optimize ad delivery.

Here are three smart ways to increase PPC conversions:

Improve On-Page SEO

Google uses on-page SEO to understand the content topic. This results in higher search placement and relevancy. The relevancy also improves ad selection by matching keywords to advertiser bids.

Do this:

Use a keyword tool to find high-value keywords/phrases
Apply keywords to the title, description, and URL
Expand the content with relevant phrases and keywords
Build new links to the updated page

Doing these will display better ads on these pages.

Placement

Place ads where visitors see them without disrupting content consumption.

Try these ad placements:

Under the post title before the content
At the top of the blog’s sidebar
Below the content but before comments

Otherwise, try banner ads every couple hundred words to “break up” the content.

Link Building

Use keyword research and visitor feedback to craft share-worthy content. This content type caters to audience wants/needs and entices inbound links.

Or, try one of the following:

Network and ask for links from relevant sites
Guest post on industry blogs and news platforms

These actions increase site and page value lifting its search engine placement. In turn, this drives more traffic creating a larger audience to convert.

Part 4: Scaling Your Marketing Efforts

Earnings from pay per click affiliate programs correlate with traffic efforts. The more people visiting your site equals more ad exposure.

Here are two smart ways to scale your PPC affiliate efforts:

Arbitrage

Arbitrage is spending your money on ads to increase traffic and conversions on ads displayed on your site. For example, you bid $0.10 per ad driving visitors to a page displaying ads offering $0.25 per click.

Try this:

Set up and fund a Google AdWords account
Use PPCNerd.com scripts to discover ad opportunities
Write engaging ad copy and select your placements
Run the campaign and measure effectiveness

Start by promoting your best content or highly optimized pages.

Auditing

Disorganized, outdated content can lower publisher quality score with advertisers and PPC platforms. Fix this by removing less-than-perfect website content.

Do this:

Use an SEO tool to discover underperforming pages
Choose to update or remove the content
Fix internal links to/from those pages
Build new, quality links to updated or redirected pages

This “tightens” your site’s content delivering a better user experience. The result is higher conversion rates (e.g. ad clicks).

Wrapping Up and Moving Forward

PPC affiliate programs provide a host of income possibilities. Each click increase earnings in part to your keen ad selection and strong branded partnerships.

Options like Google Adsense are a common starting point. But, there are many others worth tinkering and exploring. You’re not restricted to a single program.

If you have traffic generation skills then you have what it takes to make money with your website. Use our marketing directory to grow your efforts. Then, find the perfect PPC program for your site because opportunity awaits.

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