Newcomers to affiliate marketing often wonder who is more profitable to work with. But sometimes even experienced professionals who have worked for a long time either for an affiliate program or with a direct advertiser think about changing the format. In order to make the final choice, you must first study in detail all the advantages and disadvantages of both models of cooperation.
What is the difference?
CPA affiliate programs are a type of business cooperation where a partner acts as an intermediary between an advertiser and an affiliate marketer. This is a kind of hub that contains all the advertisers and their offers available for promotion by affiliate marketers. CPA programs can be both universal and focused on a specific niche, such as gambling, nutra, e-commerce, dating.
Working with a commodity affiliate program, an affiliate marketer can choose an offer in their personal account. Before choosing an offer, you should pay attention to the list of allowed and prohibited traffic channels, the proposed rate, as well as evaluate your knowledge and experience with offers of this type.
After the offer is selected, the affiliate marketer starts promoting it. The specialist receives payment for the user performing a target action specified by the advertiser, for example, for purchasing a product, filling out a form, or calling a hotline. At the same time, the affiliate program receives a percentage of the affiliate’s profit, whether it be leads, applications or deposits. But this percentage is paid by the advertiser, and not by the affiliate marketer. Thus, the affiliate program acts as a large affiliate marketing team.
If you work with the advertiser directly, they do not need to pay a commission to the affiliate program. But in this format of cooperation, there are many pitfalls, which we will discuss below.
Benefits of working with an affiliate program
Benefits of working with an affiliate program are the following:
· Payout guarantee — unlike a direct advertiser whose reputation and reliability may not always be unknown to you, a commodity CPA network acts as a guarantee that you will receive money you honestly earned.
· Service and support — modern CPA affiliate programs employ a huge staff of employees to help affiliate marketers improve their work efficiency. They will help you choose offers, select the best traffic sources, buy accounts and find a way out of a difficult situation.
· Variety of rates — working in an affiliate program, you have the right to choose offers on your own, depending on the rates offered by advertisers.
· Range — the abundance of affiliate programs allows you to choose those that have many offers from the topics you are interested in. You can focus on one niche, or you can combine different types of offers, earning from each of them.
Disadvantages of working with affiliate programs
Despite the fact that there are much fewer disadvantages in working with a commodity CPA network, this format still has disadvantages:
· Unreliable affiliate programs — newcomers to affiliate marketing should choose an affiliate network very carefully. In this area, you can encounter scammers. For example, an unknown PP can significantly cut fees to affiliate marketers or even declare bankruptcy and stop all payments.
· Lack of money — affiliate programs that do not have sufficient experience and qualifications may face a situation where they may not have enough funds to pay affiliate marketers.
· Quality of offers — in pursuit of quantity, some affiliate networks neglect the quality of offers. To avoid wasting time and money, you should choose a commodity affiliate program with good reviews and a reliable reputation.
Benefits of working with a direct advertiser
There are also several advantages to working with an advertiser directly, namely:
· Good earnings — some advertisers are willing to pay affiliate marketers more if they work without intermediaries. This is especially beneficial if you effectively promote a large number of offers at the same time.
· Selection of offers — not all advertisers work through affiliate programs, so when working without intermediaries, you can find offers that are not represented in the range of the commodity CPA network.
· Payment model — if you work directly with an advertiser, you have the option of negotiating a flat rate for doing the job. Thus, you can regularly receive a predetermined amount of payments.
Disadvantages of working with a direct advertiser
Working with a direct advertiser has not only advantages, but also disadvantages that any affiliate should be aware of:
· Refusal to pay — work without intermediaries does not exclude the risk of stumbling upon scammers or unscrupulous advertisers. Therefore, the choice of an advertiser should be approached no less seriously than the choice of an affiliate program.
· Difficulties in foreign countries — traffic affiliate marketing in foreign countries can be very difficult. The reason for this is differences in business rules, language barriers and sociocultural differences.
· Withdrawal of money — if you work with several business owners directly, you will have to make the minimum withdrawal amount for all advertisers at once, and only then can you withdraw money.
Conclusion
Both working with CPA affiliate programs and working with a direct advertiser have their pros and cons. But if you are aware of all the pitfalls inherent in both formats of cooperation, it will not be difficult to make the right choice. In any case, it is important to keep in mind the risks that may await inexperienced affiliate marketers and carefully check the information about the partner you plan to cooperate with.