With the recent growth spurt of forex marketing, various forex affiliate programs and affiliate networks became available to eager webmasters. Competitive commission offers are there to choose from and many affiliates, coming from other niches, are curious to find out what is more profitable – the direct affiliate program or an affiliate network.
Definition
Forex affiliate program is a direct link between you and a broker it represents. The revenue generated from your referrals is divided between the program and you. In case you signed up for 30%, you get your chunk and the rest goes to the affiliate program.
Let’s say, you brought 5 first time depositors and the total revenue this month is $15,000. Affiliate program, such as eToro Partners, which gives 30% revenue share, will pay you $4,500.
Forex affiliate network, on the other hand, is a middle man. Think of it as a company that makes deal with the affiliate program and makes you an offer. At the end of the day, your referrals will feed 3 hungry mouths – affiliate program, the network company and, lastly, you!
For example, fxcash network offers eToro campaigns with 20% revenue share. This month total revenue of $15,000 will be divided between the three - 20% for you, 70% for eToro and 10% is most likely to go to fxCash.
The question is why would you want to settle down for less revenue? Are there any advantages of affiliate network?
One Pool for All Commission Sources
Here is how I see it. If you want to create a review site, you will have to rate lots of brokers/services in order to make a decent-looking portal or blog.
You can sign up with 10 different affiliate programs and now you have 10 brokers/services to review. The problem arises when programs generate commissions, but not enough to withdraw.
For example
You promote ForexYard and the minimum commission withdrawal requirement is $500. You also advertise eToro and AvaFx both with $100 withdrawal requirement each. So, in order to get at least $700 per month, you have to make sure that the commission reach those requirements for each broker.
It is possible, however, that this month you make $400 with ForexYard, $50 with eToro and $99 with Avafx. This means that, unfortunately, you won’t get your commissions this month and all your earnings are rolled over to the next month.
What happens when you work with affiliate network? All campaigns you choose to work with generate commissions into one big pool. The network itself probably has a withdrawal requirement of, let’s say, $250.
In this case, you can withdraw your earnings as soon as you reach $250 for all the brands you work with put together.
Access to Brokers without Affiliate Programs
Certain brokers do not have affiliate programs of their own. Such examples are FXCM, ACM, Saxo Bank and many others. In this case, unless you site is holding top positions and getting flat-fee advertising requests, you might want to dig into forex affiliate network.
Signing up for affiliate network gives you access to reputable brokers otherwise unavailable for promotion.
With Affiliate Network You Get Less Commissions
With all that being said, if you compare commission structures available directly from the affiliate program, you can see you better off joining the program directly. After all, think about it. Affiliate network is like a car dealer. He needs to get paid for the services!
No One Says that You Cannot Combine the Two
Affiliate marketing business is all about trial and error. You never figure out what works best unless you try it out. Whether to go for direct affiliate programs, sign for affiliate networks or combine the two is entirely up to you. Look at the results, see what makes your site tick better and go for it.