Posted by Sumontro Roy.
There are two ways to make money on your website: selling goods/services and advertising revenue. Have you ever thought about bringing in additional revenue through your website? If you have, there are easy ways to jump start that cash with advertising. 
You can approach advertising on your site in one of three ways: CPM (Pay Per Impression), PPC (Pay Per Click) and Pay Per Sale (or Lead). Well, this is great to know, if you are a large, well known company and advertisers are contacting you. But what is your site is relatively unknown? Then what? If you are unknown and other companies are not contacting you to advertise on your site, you can join an affiliate network. This will allow you to be a part of a network where in you can connect with different advertisers. Choosing an affiliate program is all about knowing your target audience. Start with knowing your target demographic and picking an advertiser based on that knowledge.
Within the affiliate network, you will be presented with 3 different advertising options; CPM, PPC and Pay Per Sale or Lead.
1. CPM (Pay Per Impression): You, as the website owner, are paid by the number of times an advertisers’ banner is displayed on your website. Every time your website is loaded, the advertisement is as well. An impression signifies the number of times a banner is displayed on your website. CPM stands for Cost Per Thousand so $6 CPM means you receive $6 per 1,000 views. This would be a good solution for a site that attracts a high number of visitors.
2. PPC (Pay Per Click): You, as the website owner, are paid each time a user clicks on the advertisers’ banner. The going rate is usually higher than CPM since you are being paid when the user takes action. Obviously one should always be cognizant about which advertisers’ banners they place on their site, but with PPC, one should pay careful attention to the actually website demographic as a dental site with an advertisement for sugar free gum will most likely see more action than an advertisement for a candy bar.
3. Pay Per Sale (or Lead): You, as the website owner, are paid each time a user clicks on the advertiser’s banner and either purchases (sale conversion) or completes one of the required actions (ie: signs up to receive more information). This has a higher payout than CPM or PPC, but one must also be particularly well informed about their demographic as you are asking the user to complete 2 actions – clicking on the advertisement and taking a follow through action.
Here are some links to affiliate network sites:
- Commission Junction: http://www.cj.com/
- LinkShare: http://www.linkshare.com/
- Affiliate Shop: http://www.affiliateshop.com/
- Commission Soup: http://www.commissionsoup.com/
- DarkBlue: http://www.darkblue.com/
- Amazon Associates: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
- Primary Ads: http://www.primaryads.com/
- Affiliate Fuel: http://www.affiliatefuel.com
When choosing which online advertising option is best for you, the key is to think about your target audience. What kinds of goods or services would your target audience be drawn to? Figure that out and with a few clicks of the mouse you can make the most of your online advertising!
Feel free to contact the Team at Perks to develop and implement an effective SEO/SEM and Online Campaign for you - we look forward to hearing from you!
