All posts in Affiliate Marketing

With the likes of AdGator closing down, affiliate networks in South Africa are on the low, but there are new ones in and around the Internet for us locals. I came across OfferPond just the other day, a new affiliate network that’s open for companies and affiliates.

I got in touch with the owner who says he already has a lot of affiliates signed up, but is looking for companies to come onboard. As a new affiliate network without many companies yet, I’d imagine this would be a really good place for a company to join as you’ll no doubt get great rates whilst the network grows.

As a company you’ll be able to expand and grow your business online using display, social and search advertising. Your banners will get loaded into the system and then distributed across all the affiliates websites.

The owner is confident about the network and feels that it could become a leader in South Africa should enough people show interest. Personally, I haven’t tried the site out yet, but will be signing up as an affiliate and will hold thumbs that companies will be able to see the value in this form of wide-spread marketing.

Visit OfferPond by clicking here.

A lot of people have contacted me recently to ask questions about affiliate marketing, most specifically lead generation, so I felt I would explain that lead generation is, what sale generation is and how not to get caught out.

Firstly, it’s important to understand the difference between lead generation and sale generation, the difference is big. Lead generation offers you a payout for each lead you send – In other words, if you have a form on your website that someone fills out, such as for a loan or something, you get paid for sending the lead. In sale generation you only get paid once someone actually uses the service provided by the affiliate networking. Here’s a way to look at it:

Lead Gen: Person visits your website, fills out an insurance application form – you get paid for this.

Sale Gen: Person visits your website, fills out a form, takes an insurance policy – you get paid for this.

As you can see, the difference is massive, don’t be fooled.

Secondly, let’s take a look at not falling for big offers on sales generation. Many affiliate networks will offer you R500 for every lead you send. For example, a Bingo site might offer R500 for each person that signs up and deposits money. Now, R500 is a lot, but it’s nothing compared to what you could potentially earn if you signed up directly with the Bingo site yourself and used their structures. In most cases, a deposit of money yields you a revenue, but people don’t deposit once, they continue to deposit and you continue to earn, this makes the R500 incredibly small in comparison. You would be amazed, or perhaps not, at how many people jump at the R500/deposit option rather than going for a passive option – it’s human nature to go for the cash immediately and not wait, and these networks use this very human fault to capitalize – just watch out for this.

Ok, well that’s all I had to say really, seemed like a lot of people didn’t really understand this, so hopefully now you will. Please feel free to leave a comment with a question if you wish.