affiliate marketing : cost per action vs pay per clck

[graysofte]

I am requesting some solid feed-back on the above topic ;

I need to know what works and what doesn't when advertising your affiliate programs using cost per action networks as against search markeeting pay per click.

What are the distinct advantages of one against the other?

Which of the two is more result oriented?

Is cost per action more result oriented than pay per click?

How can results and traffic be analysed for cost per action networks?
All replies will be deeply appreciated.

Royan Shaw
http://www.search4article.com

[Daniel Alan]

I'm always for CPA as opposed to CPC by far. In any situation, I think it's better all the way around!

[nettalk]

PPC is much more popular and in my experience easier to implement compared to an successful affiliate program.

However, basic PPC setup getting simpler by the day has led to more and more people using it. This has led to inflationary pressures, with cost per click more than doubling in a very short period of time. This means that a lot of profit margins have shrunk. Further, you have to take into account that a lot of people bid with a view of getting traffic and exhausting their monthly budgets. A lot of businesses still have no accurate way of measuring ROI for each PPC campaign. Hence, the bids are sometimes too high, and outbidding these guys makes no sense from a business perspective. This leads to lower positions, which in turn will affect the total traffic that one can get now compared to a year back for the same budget.

In contrast, an affiliate marketing program, though tougher and more complex to setup and run, can be a very profitable exercise if the merchant manages to identify and sign up some good affiliates. It can be a big win win for both, the merchant and the publishers, if the right commission is offered for products. From a merchant's angle, he knows that he is only going to pay a percentage of his profits per conversion instead of paying for every click.

In fact, I had written a blog post on Affiliate Marketing versus PPC a few months back.

Vishal.

[graysofte]

Thanks for the information so far and I really do appreciate the views given.

I am currently doing a research based on the work of Internet Marketing GURU Corey Rudl - may God forever bless his soul - and Ken Envoy and would love to incorporate various schools of thought into this project.

Hey Nettalk! I like your concise and specific response could I post a sidebar with your commentary on my website to include your link?

I earlier made an offer for intersted persons submit article to me @ $50.00 a pop for 750 - 1000 words however I have now adjusted my offer to $50.00 for a 300 - 500 original piece to be included as contribution to the project I am now putting together.

Anyone interested can give me a shout anytime so that some arrangement can be made.

Royan Shaw
http://www.search4article.com

[nettalk]

Sure you can use the commentary with the link, graysofte.

Vishal.