Here, we’ll discuss the different types of affiliate programs and affiliate websites.
Know that categorizing sites are often done by advertisers (i.e., merchants) and affiliate networks, as there’s is no industry-wide accepted categorization standards currently. Though the types below are rather generic, they’re commonly used by affiliate marketers.
Let’s start by using an example- You want to start your own online store but you aren’t sure where to get customers, one way to do this would be to offer a percentage for other sites who have a lot of traffic to place a link to your shop from their site. Lets say you have cz rings shop you might contact local fashion blogs or gem and cubic zirconia blogs to see if they would be willing to set up an affiliation. These kinds of sites would make the most sense for reaching the right kinds of people. You would’ve want to put a link on a site that doesn’t relate to yours. These relating blog sites would place a link on their site linking to your shop giving them a percentage of your profit and bringing you their clientele. A great working example of this is Amazon. Amazon.com offers affiliate links to thousands of site which bring both them and amazon revenue. Amazon has been highly successful in reaching new audiences.
* Search affiliates that use pay-per-click (PPC) search engines to help promote advertisers’ offers (i.e., search arbitrage)
* Comparison shopping directories and websites
* Loyalty websites, which are usually characterized by providing a purchases reward system via points back and / or cash back
* CRM sites which offer charitable donations
* Rebate and coupon websites that center on sales promotions
* Niche market and content websites, which includes product review sites
* Personal websites- actually, this type of website gave birth to affiliate marketing; however, in the grand scheme of things as they exist today, personal websites now make up a small, almost irrelevant slice of the affiliate pie.
* Website syndication feeds and weblogs
* Newsletter list and e-mail list affiliates, which tend to be more content-heavy typically.
* Co-registration or registration path affiliates which include other merchant offers during the registration process on their own, original website
* Shopping directories that list advertisers by categories without providing price comparisons, coupons, or other features that’s based on information that changes frequently, thereby requiring continual updates
* Cost per action networks (CPA), such as top-tier affiliates, that involve offers from the advertiser or merchant with which they are affiliated to their own network of affiliates
* Websites that use adbars (such as Adsense) to display context-sensitive, highly-relevant ads for products on the site
* Virtual Currency: a new type of publisher that utilizes social media space to complement an advertiser’s offer with a handout of “virtual currency” that can be used in a game or virtual platform of some kind.