TommyCarey
Level X3
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When you break into online marketing, you may be attracted to affiliate marketing because it's highly likely you don't have your product or service to sell to anyone. By getting into affiliate marketing, you're able to push someone else's product or service, get a commission from successful sales, and never worry about talking with the customer after they go through your affiliate link.
The best thing about running a successful affiliate marketing business is that you are your boss, there are plenty of services and products out there to pitch, and the possibilities are endless. The only problem you will likely run into is if you should work with companies that are offering recurring commissions or if you should go for the ones that offer one time payments for a successful referral.
The benefit of recurring affiliate commissions
I'm pretty fond of recurring affiliate commissions, especially when the referral gets locked in as yours, and you never have to worry about them unsubscribing, then resubscribing later, and you don't get the commissions again.
Recurring commissions are pretty great because you can almost tell how much you'll be making month to month, depending on what you're pushing as an affiliate. If a product has an average subscriber rate of 6 months, then you can expect around six months of commissions from each referral you send in. Some will stick around for longer, some will stick around for a month, but the average will usually be around what the product or service developer estimates.
The downside of recurring affiliate commissions
Since you're getting a few months' worth of commissions, you will likely make less per referral on the first month, and that's one of the reasons some affiliate marketers avoid this type of structure. I've grown to love it, but there are always those times when I think "I could have made 3x the commission for that referral if it was a one-time payment and not recurring," but then I realize I'll likely profit more over time if the referral stays on board.
The upside of one-time affiliate commissions
One of the best things to wake up to is, "You've received a commission!" type emails littering your inbox. Depending on what you're promoting at the time, these commissions could be $1, or they could be $100 a piece!
Whenever I'm promoting a larger product or service and get a big commission I'm always happy because that means my bills are paid, I have some extra spending money, and there will be less stress that month lol. Some people are getting $1,000s from one-time affiliate commissions, and that's something I wouldn't mind cracking into, but for now, I'll settle with the $100 emails lol.
You can make more in a short amount of time with one time commissions, and that's why people tend to gravitate towards them. The companies know they'll lose money or break even with the affiliates sending in sales, but the company will profit every month after that because their main goal is to keep the client on board.
The negatives of one-time affiliate commissions
One of the only negative things I can think of when it comes to affiliate marketing, besides the struggle to find great referrals, is that the one-time commissions will stop overnight if you stop working. Once the marketing stops, your PPC campaigns stop, and you stop generating content and doing SEO for your website, then the leads will likely slow down or vanish right away.
One time commissions are nice because you tend to make more in a short amount of time, but you have to constantly be working.
Final Thoughts,
I'm a big fan of affiliate marketing if it's done right, and I don't see people spamming links anywhere they think they can pull in a client. I tend to stick with the lifetime commission structures that pay for every month a customer stays on board because I like to have money coming in month to month, and I usually don't work with many companies that push one time commissions because I want to take a day off lol. Don't get me wrong; there are some one-time commission affiliate programs out there that I love, but not many 
Thanks for reading!
- Tommy
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/TommyCarey