Pay Per Lead vs. Pay Per Click Affiliate Programs

Generally, a lot of webmasters ask about this question; whether pay per lead is more profitable than pay per click or vice versa. In my experience, pay per lead was more generous to me. Arguably, they both have their purposes. Pay per click in my honest opinion, serves the more “busy” sites that have a lot of visitors. And pay per lead serves the more targeted audience. Although I cannot say which method of monetizing is the best because I cannot speak for every site, they both prove to have their benefits.

My experience with PPC and PPL

Pay per click was often inconsistent for me. In my end, PPL to me was a lot more profitable as well as consistent in terms of generating a X about of money per day. Often times with PPC, one day I might get a click worth $2 and maybe the next $0.30. PPL lays out a flat rate for every lead you generate – there is no negotiation. I’m sorry if I am sounding a bit more biased to PPL, it is because pay per lead has always been, even in the rainy days, the better performing method of monetizing for me. Although it may take a bit of experimentation before you find that perfect affiliate program, it is well worth the time and effort experimenting. Because in the long run, you could be benefiting a lot more.

But before you decide which affiliate program to use, you must first decide: Is your website a small audience that is targeted on a certain matter? Or is your site a busy site filled with hundreds of thousands of visitors every month and is less originates to one particular niche? If you can answer that question, you can already guess which method of monetizing is best to test first for your site.

Although you are not limited to only these methods of monetizing because there are a lot more methods of monetizing such as pay per sale or pay per impression, it is also sometimes a good idea to mix and mash the ideas together and benefit from both worlds. As long as you believe that the two forms of monetizing don’t cross each other, meaning they don’t take away anything from each other in terms of performance, it is a good idea to use both forms of monetizing. My end result with my experimentation is that pay per lead lies more on the quality interest of visitors and pay per click relies more on quantity and placement of the ads. Ideally, I would say, they both have their fundamental uses. It no longer a strange site seeing a small site with a quality audience making as much as a site with hundreds of thousands of visitors. It is really up to you how you monetize your site to it’s full potential with what audience you currently have and continuing to funnel more quality visitors. As in every business model, experimentation is key to maximizing profits.