A Guide to the Merchant Account Affiliates Program-Part 1

Affiliate program basically is a referral program online which is made for website vendors to refer their visitors to the other website in trade for commission on transaction these visitors make.  

The ‘Merchant account affiliates’ programs have increasingly become popular with businesses, consulting, hosting, and web design, where the customers may require a suggestion on getting to accept credit cards. The ‘Merchant account affiliate’ programs have 2 payout structures namely:

‘Pay per account’ and

‘Pay per lead’

1.) ‘Pay per account’: Is an affiliate program which is different to the merchant-service affiliate-programs. Affiliate gets paid for every approved merchant-account which he refers. They provide affiliates higher payouts for each referral they make.

Negatives:

Substantial applicants would not get the set-up done fully

Commission is delayed till the merchant-account gets his/her credit card

This process does not have control once you refer a merchant

Since, this merchant account affiliates program provides higher payouts, thereby, this program is better for business as well as affiliate they refer to.

2.) “Pay per lead’: In this affiliate program, a percentage or flat fee is waged for every referral. Normally, referral is considered as visitor who applied for merchant account. Here, the affiliate gets paid without the botheration whether the applicant sets-up merchant account or not.   

Positives:

In this program, the affiliate gets paid for every application

Gets paid whether the account gets set-up or not

Getting paid, is faster indeed

Negatives:

For every set-up, lower commission is paid

Both the programs are same, but they provide completely diverse benefits. The main difference between the two programs is that the affiliate with pay-per-account has to wait trusting the lead they referred would be turned into account.

With the pay-per-account programs, the process of merchant account could be frustrating and confusing for affiliates who wait for commission. Even the excellent merchant-account provider would not convert seventy percent of their referrals into sales. In several scenarios, three out of ten referrals would not be paid. Most of the providers never break fifty percent of their lead into an account.

Let us now consider the “Payout Amounts”:

Usually ‘pay per lead programs’ pay within $5 till $25 for each lead. But ‘Pay per account programs’ pay normally between $50 till $200 for each account. In higher-paying programs, often there is an extra need for commission that has to be compensated.  Most of the times, the requirements would be descriptive as how a referred business gets processed within three months or how to obtain minimum monthly processing volumes.

These programs offer distinctive features but they are not worthy of our pays.

Let us consider the flow chart of “Pay per account” program:

Visitor clicks Merchant account siteà Visitor then browses siteà Decides to submit an applicationà sales agents contact visitor trying to get them a merchant accountà Visitor applies, the application is sent for getting approvedà Visitor shops while accounts remain in pending stateàaccount is approved/declined, in case of approval, merchant gets the device and starts using it.