Many blog owners monetize their sites using contextual advertising or affiliate networks. Those are probably the two most popular methods of monetizing a blog or website, if you do not have a product or service of your own to sell. Often, blog owners overlook a relatively easy method of making money with their sites by using pay per lead programs. A major advantage of using pay per leads for monetization is, they normally convert better than affiliate programs and a sale is not required to make money.
How Pay Per Lead Networks Work
Lead networks are normally referred to as Cost Per Action (CPA) networks. This is derived from the fact that in many cases the leads are not required to purchase anything. Instead, the goal is for a potential lead to take some sort of action, which could be providing a name and email address, filling out a survey, downloading a file or providing their personal contact information. Businesses are always looking for new customers, so obtaining information from potential customers gives them a database of leads that can be used for solicitation for future business.
A business will use a lead network to advertise their offers and in turn they will compensate that lead network for any leads that are delivered. The lead networks share a portion of their compensation with publishers (blog or website owners) that promote the offers.
Generating Passive Income
Whether you use contextual advertising, affiliate marketing or pay per leads, they are all a form of passive income. As long as you have the foundation in place, which is a site that you update regularly and gets decent traffic, money can be made with either or all programs. The issue with using contextual advertising is, you have to have a site that gets thousands of visitors per day to make any real money. You also run the risk of invalid click activity, which can result in your account getting banned even if you are not at fault.
Promoting affiliate programs can yield nice rewards if you are able to actually sell anything. There are some super affiliates that generate thousands of dollars per month, but trust me, many of them pay for targeted traffic. Most people do not have the budget to endure the amount of testing that is required when using paid traffic to find the right campaign that will convert consistently. If you are not willing to pay for traffic, you have to hope you are lucky enough to rank highly on Google for the proper keyword that will bring buyers to the affiliate program you promote. With the dynamic nature of Google, it is highly unlikely that you can have success long-term using that approach.
Lead programs work, because many are very simple. I have promoted programs that only require an email address and nothing more. They range of pay is normally in the $1 to $5 range, which is much more than the .03 to .10 you would receive for someone clicking on an ad when using contextual advertising. Now it does not stand up to the pay of affiliate marketing, but you still have the challenge of actually selling products if you are an affiliate. This blog has been up 10 months and I’ve sold a whopping 3 items after writing a number of articles promoting various products and services. Using pay per leads, I sometimes get 3 conversions in one hour. Until my blog matures to a point where I can convert affiliate programs consistently, pay per leads will be my primary method of generating income.
Getting Started Using the Panthera Network
Panthera is an online marketing company that specializes in performance-based advertising. Their network consists of hundreds of specialty-content publishers and quality advertisers with high-converting offers. Having tried several lead networks, Panthera is one of the few that offers the following:
1. Large selection of offers – There are over 300 offers available for several different countries. Many of these offers only require a first or second page submit or a name and email address so they are highly convertible.
2. Points Program – The points program is another method of generating additional income. You accumulate points based on the commissions you earn through your Panthera publisher account. Each dollar in revenue generated will earn you ten points which rolls over month to month. ALL offers qualify for points. Points can be used for cash rewards or gift cards.
3. Sign Up Bonus - Each new publisher will get a $150 sign up bonus if they generate $1,500 in commissions. The $1,500 in commissions must be generated within sixty-days of the signup date. Super Affiliates are offered a 60-day challenge where they will receive a $1000 bonus check if they generate $25,000 in commissions.
Panthera provides real-time reporting of impressions, clicks, leads or sales, commission generated and conversion rates. You also have the flexibility of testing multiple ad combinations until you find the right ads that convert on your site. To join the Panthera network….click here to submit an application. Approval normally takes a few days and as long as you have a quality site that gets some traffic, getting approved should not be an issue.
When considering your application the company looks at several sites that may not have accurate information about your site. If for any reason your application gets rejected, I would suggest contacting the company directly and providing accurate information about your sites traffic and what region most of it originates from. My application was initially rejected because Alexa showed some inaccurate information about my site. After I provided accurate proof of my traffic from Google Analytics, my application was reconsidered and approved the following day.
