If you are a website owner, then it is possible to make money from both cashback and affiliate programs. Some people, though, make the mistake of thinking these are basically the same thing and, while they are very similar, they also have their differences. These are important to understand as it might make a difference to whether or not you decide to sign up to a particular program. This article looks at the key components of cashback and affiliate programs, as well as some of the differences between them.
What is a cashback program?
A cashback program is essentially exactly what it sounds like. You sign up to a cashback scheme, which you then promote on your website. This generally includes products from major retailers. When someone makes a purchase as a result of clicking on one of your links, the retailers pay you for it – and the customer also receives some cashback, which is their incentive for getting involved. As a customer, it helps you to save money and, as a website owner, it gives you some extra income while the retailer benefits from the additional sale.
What is an affiliate program?
An affiliate program is different to a cashback program in that the customer doesn’t get any money if they buy something through your website. Instead, with affiliate programs, you display links and adverts from companies and, if customers click through onto those adverts, you receive money. This is known as ‘pay per click’ advertising. There are lots of third party affiliate programs, which are available to join and they offer a range of adverts that you can display on your site. Huge retailers such as Amazon and Tesco also run their own schemes.
What are the key differences between the two?
As you can see from the above outline, there are both similarities and differences between cashback programs and affiliate programs. One of the main differences is that, with cashback programs, the customer also benefits by getting some money back on whatever they buy through your site as long as it is linked to a cashback deal. As the money is split more ways, you might find that this means you get less out of it as a result.
Also, with affiliate programs, you arguably have more room to manoeuvre when it comes to what you display on your site. For example, you could sign up to an affiliate program that only works with certain types of company so you can tailor the advertising better.
Whichever you decide to go with, though, you need to remember that your focus should be on the quality of the traffic generated rather than the quantity. After all, it is much better to have 100 people visit your website and either click onto an advert or make a purchase than it is to have 100,000 visitors, none of whom take advantage of the offers. This means that affiliate programs and cashback schemes can work for big or small websites – as long as you have an audience, you can have success.
