Hello there Sea Changers. Welcome back to my series of program lists to assist those of you looking to fund your sea change with affiliate marketing. Today we are going to investigate another side of the affiliate marketing caper with my top 10 pay per click affiliate programs to mouse over this year. Now in most cases, affiliate marketers earn money once they refer a sale to a vendor. With these programs however, affiliate marketers can earn extra cash commissions simply by either

1. Placing ads on their site sites that earn money every time a reader clicks on them.

2. Referring a reader to the site where they are paid for the ‘visit’ regardless of whether they purchase once they get there of not.

Now, there are a number of different areas or sub niches within this subject hence the quantity of affiliate programs to choose from may be just as large. So how have I picked my best 10? Well… I really just wanted to give you a good cross section of what is out there so I did some searching around and checked a few out and chose them by looking at:

• What they offer
• Traffic requirements
• RPM
• Average CCP rate
• Affiliate program – i.e whether they have one
• Payment threshold
• Payment frequency

Before we start however, let’s have a look at what I mean by the term ‘pay per click’ and how it can be incorporated within an affiliate marketing website…

What do we mean by pay per click?

As mentioned above, pay per click (PPC) is pretty much as it sounds. You, as an affiliate marketer (or any website owner for that matter) place ads or links on your site. When a reader clicks on the ad or link, you get paid a commission (or something of a similar name).

And as an added bonus, some even run affiliate programs as well-meaning that if someone signs up to them you can receive affiliate commissions as well as PPC bounties. For this post then, I have tried to cover a good cross section of PPC affiliate program options covering:

• General PPC
• Cost Per Action
• Native Ad and video advertising
• Website space purchasing

And of course anything else you can think of when it comes to making money with ads etc. online… So, if you are looking to add some monetization to your site, or set up an online business in this space, let’s check them out below.

1. Adsense

Let’s start with the world’s largest search engine and Google Adsense. Adsense allows website owners to place ads on their site that pay a commission each time that ad is clicked. Ads are based on the search history of the reader and not on the subject of the site. Benefits of the program include:

• Ads optimized for mobile
• Ads automatically placed based on saturation settings
• Only one piece of code required on website
• Integrates with Google Analytics and Search Console

Even through they do not stipulate traffic requirements, to be accepted your website will need to be able to demonstrate some traffic (my first site was accepted at 500 per month but I have seen people rejected with way more). Sites will also need to publish good, helpful content, meet Google’s usability algorithm requirements and not contain adult, illegal or violent content.

Traffic requirements: None

RPM: Up to $7

Average CCP rate: $0.01 to $0.50 average

Affiliate program: No

Payment threshold: $100 in currency of Gmail account location

Payment frequency: 30 Days

Note: Ad revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) is calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of ad impressions you received, then multiplying by 1000. So in the case above, adsense estimates that you will earn roughly $7 per 1000 ad impressions on your site.

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2. Media.net

Our next site, Media.net is “a leading global advertising company with one of the most comprehensive portfolios of advertising technology in the industry across search, native, display, mobile, local, products and video”. Media.net is effectively the Bing/Yahoo version of Adsense with the following features:

• Ads optimized based on reader’s search behaviours
• Ads customized to the look and feel of website pages for higher user engagement
• Auto learning of most popular ad placement sites on a website

Note: Adsense ads run on Bing/Yahoo browsers and Media.net ads run on Google browsers as well.

To be accepted, your website will need to:

• Contain significant amount of original content that is updated regularly and does not infringe any third party intellectual property rights
• Receive majority of their traffic from US / UK / Canada
• Contain content that is primarily in the English language
• Have a reasonable volume of visitors already using the website
• Not contain excessive advertising

Traffic requirements: No number stipulated

RPM: Up to $10

Average CCP rate: $0.01 to $1.00 average

Affiliate program: Yes – Affiliates can earn 10% commissions on the earnings of referrals who join PPC programs.

Payment threshold: USD $100

Payment frequency: 30 Days

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3. Mediavine

For website owners with a larger traffic reach, Mediavine is another pay per click advertising company aimed at “building sustainable businesses for content creators”. With a goal to “provide your readers with the best possible user experience and you with maximum earnings, all with full transparency”, they offer the following features:

• Lazy loaded ads to maintain site speed
• Video monetization
• Ads placed automatically for optimal view ability, user-experience and adherence to the Coalition for Better Ads standards

This is a good one to look into once your site reaches the lofty heights as per below and they pride themselves on the fact that a lower membership base means higher returns for their site owners. To be accepted, your website will need to have:

• 50,000 sessions in the previous 30 days (per Google Analytics)
• Good standing with Google AdSense
• Original content in ANY niche as a lifestyle publisher
• Long-form, engaging content

Traffic requirements: 50,000 session in previous month

RPM: Up to $30

Average CCP rate: $0.10 to $2.00 average

Affiliate program: No

Payment threshold: USD $25

Payment frequency: 65 Days

4. Infolinks

Infolinks is an ad site that promises publishers that they can “earn more with smart ads”. This includes the benefit of real time website analysis to ensure most relevant ads are displayed. Ads are then automatically placed on the website based on this analysis.

There does not appear to be any traffic limitation to joining the program however applicants must have a valid website (so that they can load the ad code) that does not contain adult, obscene, pornographic, defamatory, libelous, infringing, abusive, or illegal content, does not promote hate or discrimination, facilitate the sale of firearms or illegal drugs, or participate or encourage participation in illegal activities.

Traffic requirements: None

RPM: Up to $5

Average CCP rate: $0.01 to $0.10 average

Affiliate program: Yes – Affiliates earn 10% of revenue generated by referred publishers

Payment threshold: USD $50

Payment frequency: 45 Days

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5. BuySellAds

Whilst BuySellAds deals with the use of ad space on websites, ads are not targeted based on user experience as per many of the above. In this case, advertisers purchase space on registered sites based on website fit, traffic levels and adherence to core values etc. This process includes the following features:

• Assistance to find advertisers
• Ad block recovery
• Header bidding management

This program would work well for those looking to match their ad revenue to the culture and/or niche that they are working in. In many cases, the companies that advertise also run with affiliate programs allowing for PPC and affiliate sales commissions to be earned at the same time. To be accepted, you may need to ensure that:

• Your website is live with fresh content and its own domain (i.e. not a sub domain).
• The site receives over 100k impressions each month.
• Your site is not already over populated with ads.
• Your site does not contain adult, illegal, violent or any other unacceptable content.
• Your site is written in English.

Traffic requirements: 100k impressions per month

RPM: Up top $10

Average CCP rate: Niche dependent

Affiliate program: No

Payment threshold: Not Stated

Payment frequency: Not Stated

6. Skimlinks

Our next site, Skimlinks sort of blurs the lines between the pure PPC advertising sites listed above and a more traditional affiliate network operation. In essence, there are two ways to earn with this site:

1. Join as a ‘publisher’ where Skimlinks will automate the monetization of commerce links meaning bloggers can write the content and have links to over 48,500 merchants added automatically.
2. Join the referral program and earn up to 35% of the income earned by those that they refer as publishers.

This is a good one to look into of you are looking to ‘double dip’ via affiliate marketing posts and referral ads to the program itself. In terms of PPC capacity, ad banners can be placed on your site to allow readers to join from any post or page. There does not appear to be any joining criteria on the site that I could find however they do state that only around 30% of applicants are accepted.

Traffic requirements: None

RPM: N/A

Average CCP rate: N/A

Affiliate program: Yes – Earn up to 35% of the commissions earned by referrals

Payment threshold: Not Stated

Payment frequency: 90 Days

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7. Revenue Hits

Revenue Hits works in a similar method as those above in that ads are placed on the website in order to increase revenue. The difference here however is that unlike those others, revenue is earned predominately on a Cost Per Action (CPA) arrangement rather than simple CPP. This means that not only does the reader need to click on the link, but they will need to perform some sort of action as well such as read a page, sign up to a newsletter or even purchase (as per the traditional affiliate marketing model). Features however include:

• Algorithms that research both audience and the context of the website
• Ad block monetization

CPA programs work very well for those sites with high rates of warm traffic that trust the site and are willing to click on suggested adverts.

Traffic requirements: None

RPM: Up to $10

Average CCP rate: $0.20 – $1.00

Affiliate program: Yes

• 5% of the revenues made by referred publishers who earn less than $1,500
• 10% of the revenues made by referred publishers who earn more than $1,500

Payment threshold: USD$20 for PayPal and Payoneer, and $500 for wire

Payment frequency: 30 days

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8. Outbrain

Outbrain is another popular PPC site that works in the area of native, ‘story’ and video driven ads. Designed to solve the problem “publishers had in replicating the print experience of turning a page to discover the next article or product on the web”, This site has taken native advertising to a new level with features as follows:

• High impact Native video
• Smartfeed
• Optimisation engines
• Native Ad servers.

Outbrain is a good option for those in the informational type niches as native ads can be easily matched however most niches should be able to find a good fit as well. There are no traffic level requirements to join however applicants must have a high-quality site with value adding, engaging content.

Traffic requirements: None

RPM: Up top $10

Average CCP rate: $0.20 – $1.00

Affiliate program: No

Payment threshold: USD$50

Payment frequency: 90 days

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9. Taboola

As with the site above, Taboola works in the native ads field providing ‘news feed’ type advertising for websites and social media alike. From a publisher’s point of view, it provides the following:

• Page news feed
• A/B testing and alerts
• Optimised paid acquisition
• Audience exchange
• Sponsored videos

Again, this site would suit just about any blog based website where ‘news feed’ options can be displayed at the bottom of the page. There are no traffic level requirements to join that I could see however applicants must:

• Be at least 18 years old.
• Own and operate their identified website(s).
• Only publish content that they own or properly license (e.g. no scraped or copyrighted content).
• Respect an exclusive partnership with Taboola (excluding other third-party recommendation services).

Traffic requirements: None

RPM: Up to $20

Average CCP rate: $0.01 – $0.10

Affiliate program: No

Payment threshold: USD$100

Payment frequency: 60 days

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10. YouTube

And finally we take a look at YouTube. Yep, YouTube – the second largest search engine on the internet. And for those who can manage to build their channel subscriptions to over 1000, they can monetize them in the same fashion as a website. The process works in a similar fashion to the CPP sites above in that ads can be displayed on top of, or before (as native video ads) the main channel videos being watched by consumers. Ads can be shown on most videos as long as they are do not contain:

• Inappropriate language
• Violence
• Adult content
• Shocking content
• Harmful or dangerous acts
• Hateful content
• Incendiary and demeaning
• Recreational drugs and drug-related content
• Tobacco-related content
• Firearms-related content
• Controversial issues and sensitive events
• Adult themes in family content

To be eligible to show ads on your YouTube Channel, you will need to ensure:

1. Your channel meets their policies and guidelines – see above.
2. You have an AdSense account.
3. Make sure you have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours.

Traffic requirements: None

RPM: $3 – $5

Average CCP rate: $0.01 – $0.03

Affiliate program: No

Payment threshold: $100 in currency of Gmail account location

Payment frequency: 30 Days

Conclusion

So… There are my 10 top pay per click affiliate programs to mouse over this year. I hope it has been helpful for you as you commence your own affiliate marketing based affiliate marketing business and as usual, please do not hesitate to comment below if you have any questions, need some advice or have any experiences to share. Oh, and especially comment if you have any experience with these, or any other programs as well.

Until next time

Have fun

Paul

Note: If you make a purchase from this page, there is a very good chance that I make a commission from it – these commissions do not increase your sale price. This may include sales made via Wealthy Affiliate.

Do you want further assistance with any of the above or need help to build your own revenue raising website?

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