What Are The Benefits Of a Residual Affiliate Program

Online Affiliate programs are here to stay and without doubt the best business model to have emerged since the birth of trade.  Explosive growth in internet usage has made this the preferred home business model for many an online entrepreneur.

The affiliate business may be broadly classified in two categories.  The first and the most preferred affiliate model is the one time commission that is paid to an affiliate whenever a conversion takes place from the traffic he has diverted to the merchants web site.  Commissions for this kind of affiliate programs are usually large, ranging from 25% to a high of about 75%.    

But this type of affiliate program puts a limit to the money you can earn from a conversion that you have made.  Can you put a limit on earning more from your prospect?

The second type of affiliate programs offers a life long residual income for the prospect who continues to patronize the merchant.  Residual programs are offered by membership sites where member may continue to get new resources every month and he continues to be a member till he finds it valuable.  Residual affiliate programs however pay a lower rate, but merchants offering such kind of programs would generally pay you regular and ongoing commissions for a single affiliate initiated sale!  That means, for the same effort you made in promoting a particular affiliate program, you get paid only once in a one-time commission program, and a regular and ongoing commission for a residual program!

The benefits of promoting residual affiliate programs are very clear.  Or is it still vague?  If they are still vague, then let's make them a bit clearer with this example.

Let us say that there are two online merchants both offering web hosting services on their sites.  The first merchant offers a one-time commission type of affiliate program that pays $80 for every single affiliate initiated sale.  The second merchant also offers an affiliate program, but this time a residual affiliate program that pays only $20 for every single affiliate initiated sale.  As an affiliate, we may get attracted to the one time offering of seemingly large $80 as $80 is definitely a lot larger than $20.  But by thinking things over before actually getting into them, one may be able to see that the second merchant is offering us more opportunity to earn a larger amount of money for the lifetime of the customer with the hosting service.

Suppose you have directed traffic to the merchant and it converted into a sale, you'll get paid once by the first merchant for the sale you have initiated.  But with the second merchant, you'll get paid monthly for as long as the customer you have referred to the merchant continues to avail of the web hosting service.  That means that for the same effort of getting one customer to avail of the merchant's service, you get paid monthly in residual affiliate programs while you only get paid once in a one-time commission type of affiliate programs.

Membership services offering web hosting to online education to online clubs all offer residual incomes continually for the one time effort. 

So, are residual affiliate programs worth promoting?  Definitely yes, because you virtually get more money from these types of affiliate programs in the long run!  And would residual affiliate programs work best for you?  Probably not, probably yes.  It is not really for me to tell.  But with the benefits that residual affiliate marketing can provide, it would really be unwise to ignore such programs.

Now you can be a confident expert on Affiliate Programs. OK, maybe not an expert. But you should have something to fast track your affiliate marketing business by downloading some free web tools.