May Be Future of Parked Domain Names — Affiliate Programs

Cost per action and cost per sale is a good alternative to pay-per-click.

With all of this talk regarding dying pay-per-click revenue and the potential for Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) to stop supporting the domain channel, domain owners are looking for alternatives. One alternative is cost-per-action (CPA) programs.

With CPA, you direct visitors to other web sites, but instead of getting paid for the click you get paid if someone performs an action at the target web site. This action can be as simple as providing an e-mail address (earns you regarding $1-$2) or completing a lead form (earns you $5-$35). You get fewer actions than clicks, but the dollars can add up quickly.

I’ve started forwarding some of my domains that perform poorly with PPC directly to affiliate pages that pay me on cost-per-action. If you’ve flirted with affiliate programs ahead of, counting Google affiliate arbitrage, you’ve probably signed up for Commission Junction or Linkshare. This is a fool’s game. Payouts on these “big” networks are low and you are competing against hundreds of other people promoting the same program.

So here are my suggestions for affiliate programs networks offering CPA that have high payouts and reliably send me a check each month. My suggestion is to sign up for all of them, compare their offers, and test until you find winners.

HydraNetwork – this is a biggie and has fresh offers to promote every day. Last year I did regarding $40k with them. They are particular regarding who they allow on their network. You can expect them to call you following you apply to verify your credentials. It helps if you have previous affiliate experience. I seriously considered not counting this one so I wouldn’t create competition, but I figure there’s plenty to go around.

Market Leverage – I just started using Market Leverage following meeting them at TRAFFIC a couple weeks ago. They had one of those “money booths” where you stand in it and fans blow money all around as you try to grab it. (Thanks for the $43 by the way!) My early test results are positive as they have good offers and high payouts. The cool thing is they FedEx your check each month, regardless of how little (or big) it is.

OfferFusion – I do regarding $1k-$2k a month with OfferFusion promoting just one offer. I’ve received reliable payments from them for a couple years and highly recommend them.

Hopefully these programs will work for you, too. If the program calls you to make sure you’re a fit for their program, be sure to mention you’re a domainer and read regarding them on Reglike.