Pay-Per-Lead
Pay-per-lead revenue is earned by tracking how many qualified potential customers, or leads, visit a merchant. For example: Credit card companies offer this type of program to ay affiliate for customers who apply for a credit card. Although the applicant may be denied for the card, the company will pay affiliates for applicants, or leads, as opposed to paying for visitors to the site. Pay-per-lead payment works well for merchants who have customers that don't actual purchase a product, but sign-up for kind of service.

Pay-Per-Click
Pay-per-click revenue is usually a much smaller amount that per-lead, or per-sale programs. For example: $.10 per click would be a pretty high pay-per-click earning rate for affiliates. Affiliates are paid for each unique site visitor under a pay-per-click structure. For affiliates receiving a high volume of traffic, pay-per-click programs could be very profitable. This method would not be as ideal for a low-traffic web site.

Pay-Per-Sale
Pay-per-sale is either doled out as a percentage or a flat-rate amount. Online stores, like Amazon.com, pay affiliates 10% of whatever the customer, recommended to the store by an affiliate, purchases. iPowerWeb, on the other hand, pays affiliates a flat-rate amount, $65.00, for each customer they are sent by the affiliate. Pay-per-sale programs are the best way to earn high commissions with lower traffic sites. (And, of course, could be very profitable for high traffic affiliate sites.)