As an affiliate, you must be looking for reliable ways to make money AND – most importantly – have full control over your earnings. If so, you might benefit most from pay per lead affiliate programs without relying on the sales that may or may not happen on the advertiser’s side.
You must have heard of the biggest affiliate networks, like Amazon Associates or ShareASale, but there are plenty more fish in the sea: less-known pay-per-lead networks and programs might offer better conditions for affiliates in niches like insurance.
So how do you choose the best pay per lead affiliate programs, how many programs do you need, and what’s your revenue potential? Read on to learn everything you know about pay per lead affiliate marketing, along with examples of the best pay per lead programs.
Pay Per Lead vs. Pay Per Click vs. Pay Per Sale Affiliate Marketing
To choose between pay-per-lead, pay-per-click, and pay-per-sale affiliate programs, estimate the quality and amount of traffic you generate and how much it converts. Then, you can make an educated guess about whether selling clicks, leads, or sales is more profitable.
| Pay Per Lead | Pay Per Click | Pay Per Sale | |
| Pays for | Leads | Clicks | Sales |
| Payment Size | Moderate | Low | High |
| Conversion Goal | Lead Acquisition | Traffic Acquisition | Actual Sales |
| Risk for Affiliates | Moderate | Low | High |
Why Enroll in a Per Pay Lead Affiliate Program?
Pay per lead affiliate programs are usually the safest for affiliates because they don’t force them to pay for the advertiser’s mistakes. Whether the affiliated customer makes a purchase largely depends on how good the sales agent is, so it’s hard to see why affiliates should lose profits if the advertiser fails to convert a qualified lead.
How Much Should an Affiliate Program Pay Per Lead?
It’s impossible to give an accurate estimation of what price per lead is good and what affiliate programs underpay – there are simply too many variables that affect the price.
However, there are some general numbers that you can proceed from:
- The average cost per lead (CLP) in the e-commerce industry in the United States is around $83 for organic acquisition channels and $100 for paid channels
- The average cost per lead (CLP) in the B2B SaaS industry in the United States is $165 for organic acquisition channels and $310 for paid channels
- The average cost per lead (CLP) in the financial services industry in the United States is $555 for organic acquisition channels and $760 for paid channels
As you can see, the price varies dramatically between industries and whether the leads are individuals or businesses. Other essential factors are lead quality, freshness, location, acquisition channel, history of purchases, age, gender, marital status, and more.
Your optimal price per lead should be based on three major parameters:
Parameter #1 – Lead Acquisition Cost
You’re generating leads to make profits, so naturally, you don’t want to sell your leads at a low price. However, this is quite tricky because sometimes it’s worth selling leads at a breakeven or even at a loss to maintain the loyalty of your advertiser.
In other words, you shouldn’t necessarily sell every lead or every batch of leads at the desired price, but you must ensure that your overall strategy is profitable. Finding the right balance between advertiser loyalty and profits is a golden ticket to sustainable affiliate income.
Parameter #2 – Market Demand
No affiliate program can buy an infinite number of leads—at some point, the demand may run dry, reducing the price or making it impossible to sell all your leads. For this reason, it might be best to enroll in several cost per lead affiliate programs in the first place.
There are over 11,400 affiliate programs in the United States alone, so finding relevant programs isn’t a problem. Most affiliates run three or more programs to diversify risks and maximize their earnings.
Parameter #3 – Target Profit Margin
To make good money with PPL marketing, you should have a profit margin of around 30%. But then again, much depends on how many affiliate marketing leads you can sell.
For many businesses, affiliate marketing is either a side hustle or an addiction income source, so the income statistics don’t look impressive. Only around 30% of marketers make more than $10,000 annually from their affiliate marketing efforts, with 5% earning over $50,000, 8%—over $100,00, and around 4%—over $150,000.
Source: Statista
How To Choose a Pay Per Lead Affiliate Marketing Program
When it comes to choosing an affiliate marketing program, there’s a shortcut: in some cases, you can just join the biggest affiliate marketing networks like Amazon Associates, ShareASale, or Awin and skip the research part. These are time-tested and reliable.
Source: Statista
However, depending on the product you’ll promote, the expected revenue, and the conditions you’d like to get, you might also want to research beyond these well-known programs. Partnerships with smaller affiliate networks and advertisers might have advantages like bigger rewards or local promotion opportunities.
Here’s how to choose your pay per lead affiliate program in 5 steps:
Step 1 – Identify Your Most Profitable Niche
Every niche has at least some affiliate programs, so you don’t have to worry about that. If you’re a new affiliate, it might be reasonable to start with a single niche and expand as you gain footing in the game.
All other things being equal, choose a niche with a higher price per lead. Among the high-ticket affiliate marketing niches are solar (CPL of $206), automotive (CPL of $283), healthcare (CPL of $361), insurance (CPL of $406), and real estate (CPL of $448). But then again, consider how many leads you can generate and what the cost per lead would be for you.
Source: FirstPageSage
Step 2 – Research The Top Pay Per Lead Affiliate Programs in Your Niche
Once you’ve identified your niche, research the available affiliate programs. Since you’re looking for a program that pays per lead, you’ll likely sieve out most programs instantly because most insurance affiliate programs pay per sale.
If you have other critical factors – for example, the minimum price per lead – you can quickly go through your list and retain the programs that satisfy your major requirements. Then, you can run these programs by this criteria:
#1 Required Lead Type and Quality
Not all affiliate programs accept all types of leads, so you must choose one that accepts the leads you generate at your target price:
| Exclusive Leads | Selling exclusive leads means selling one lead to one advertiser. These leads are significantly more expensive, but the profits from one sold exclusive lead might not exceed those from one sold shared lead if the latter is sold to several pay per lead companies. |
| Shared Leads | Selling shared leads means selling one lead to several advertisers simultaneously. These leads are usually a few times cheaper than exclusive leads, but you can sell lots of them quickly if you have enough advertisers on the other end (for example, you’re part of a big affiliate network like Profitise). |
On a similar note, pay per lead affiliate programs may limit the freshness of the leads they buy (aged leads may not be accepted), the delivery method (advertisers might want to connect leads instantly to their sales department), location, age, gender, and multiple other factors.
Long story short, you must peruse the affiliate agreement before taking action. Some programs estimate their profitability, so you might even get an idea of how much you will earn with the type and number of leads you expect to generate.
#2 Payment Structure
Not all affiliate programs offer a flat fee per lead (when you get a fixed amount for every qualified lead) – some offer tiered payments, increasing the payout as you sell more leads. For example, you may get $10 per lead for your first 100 leads, $15 for the next 100, and $20 for all subsequent leads.
Likewise, affiliate programs can offer recurring payments, issuing commissions for the first or all sales. There might also be models where the commission depends on the lead’s value: the more the lead spends with the advertiser, the bigger the payout.
Some affiliate programs also offer bonuses for long-term commitment. These usually include payouts for generating a specific number of leads per month or a total number of leads.
#3 Lead Tracking Technologies
To sell more leads, you must know how they interact with the advertiser. For this, you need lead tracking that goes beyond using affiliate links. Ideally, you need to dissect the entire customer journey across all meaningful touchpoints.
#4 Creative Materials
Most affiliate programs that have proven effective in promoting their products include creative materials—banners, display ads, email templates, landing pages, product images, social media content, etc. It’s essential that these materials be customizable so you can apply your branding.
#5 Cookie Duration
Cookie duration is the time window during which the sale is attributed to the affiliate after the customer clicks the affiliate link. In most cases, a long cookie duration of 30 days is enough to capture all sales made using your link.
Step 3 – Compare the Shortlisted Programs
Now that you’ve researched the programs, choosing one or several of the best programs won’t be hard. By the way, if the program lacks one or two things you want, you might ask your advertiser for them.
Step 4 – Negotiate with Your Advertiser
Most advertisers are willing to negotiate if you have high-quality traffic or can provide many customers. You can ask for almost any change, including the commission size, so don’t be shy about getting what you need.
Step 5 – Enroll into Other Affiliate Programs
Look for ways to diversify your income streams, especially if you have heterogeneous traffic. Different advertisers may have different conditions for the same traffic, so you can enroll in several pay-per-lead affiliate programs to maximize profits.
The Best Insurance Pay Per Lead Affiliate Programs
Service Direct – Pay Per Lead Health Insurance Affiliate Program
Service Direct is one of the most comprehensive pay per lead and pay-per-call marketplaces, buying leads from dozens of industries and running a health affiliate program. Other popular industries include home services, auto insurance, life insurance, auto repairs, and more.
Service Direct might be one of the most convenient, straightforward, and flexible affiliate programs out there, providing exhaustive insights on traffic and conversion rates. For example, it expects nine times more conversions from phone calls than web leads.
As an affiliate, you get help from a dedicated account manager who analyzes your performance, reveals areas for improvement, and advises on potentially profitable adjustments. With phone calls, the account manager can help you control the quality of your calls so you can drive calls that end up as booked appointments.
Source: Service Direct
One of the coolest things with Service Direct is their map of bids displaying the bids for the last 7 days for the chosen industry. At the time of writing, the average bid for health insurance was $24.55 across all states, ranging from $22.64 to $27.17.
The bid map also displays the number of bids and the average bid by weekday and hour of day. It’s an excellent way to identify your best industries and the best times to sell traffic.
Commission per lead: around $25
Prohibited traffic sources: Free marketplace directories (Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, etc.)
The full list of pay per lead health insurance affiliate programs.
Insurify – Pay Per Lead Auto Insurance Affiliate Program
Insurify is an AI-driven digital insurance comparison platform that offers one of the highest-paying pay per lead car insurance affiliate programs through the CJ Affiliate network—up to $15 per qualified lead.
You can drive leads from all 50 states, who will then see 4 to 6 personalized auto insurance quotes from the leading carriers, including Nationwide, Farmers, The General, MetLife, and more.
Commission per lead: $15
Cookie duration: 30 days.
The full list of pay per lead auto insurance affiliate programs.
SmartFinancial – Pay Per Lead Home Insurance Affiliate Program
SmartFinancial is a comprehensive digital insurance platform that offers home, auto, life, health, Medicare, motorcycle, renters, and commercial insurance alongside affiliate programs for auto, health, home, and commercial insurance. The affiliate programs are run by the Impact network.
Commission per lead:
- Home insurance – $9 per lead
- Auto insurance – $6 to $8 per lead
- Health insurance – $5 per lead
- Commercial insurance – $12 per lead
The full list of pay per lead home insurance affiliate programs.
Ethos Life – Pay Per Lead Life Insurance Affiliate Program
Ethos Life is a life insurance platform that runs arguably the highest-paying life insurance program through Impact, rewarding affiliates with up to $55 per marketing lead. As for the rest, there’s nothing special: you fill out their application form, wait for the approval, and you’re good to go.
Commission per lead: $55
Cookie duration: 7 days
The full list of pay per lead life insurance affiliate programs.
What Quality Do Advertisers Expect from The Leads They Buy?
As an affiliate, you might wonder what advertisers think of the leads they buy.
Sales leads stand fairly well against marketing-generated leads and referrals. Around 66% of bought leads are satisfactory or high quality, with only around 14% being low-quality.
Source: Statista
Monetize Your Traffic with Profitise
Profitise is a leading insurance and solar affiliate network for affiliates who are selling quality web leads and phone calls. With hundreds of businesses already joined and even more to come, Profitise is a to-go place to monetize your traffic.
With Profitise, you get:
- Embeddable JavaScript forms to generate qualified insurance and solar leads
- Large lead market to sell your traffic instantly
- High price for your web and call leads
- Free assistance from your affiliate manager
Sell leads with Profitise as an affiliate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an insurance affiliate?
An insurance affiliate is a company or individual that generates and sells insurance leads to advertisers directly or through an affiliate network. Affiliates get paid for leads, clicks on affiliate links, or sales.
Why use affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn profits by promoting third-party products relevant to your audience. Think about affiliate marketing this way: if you recommend a product to your readers or viewers anyway, why not earn a commission on it? Insurance affiliate marketing is a healthy and legal business model if you disclose using affiliate links.
How many affiliate programs can I join?
There’s no limit to the number of affiliate programs you can join. Practice shows that running 3 to 7 affiliate programs is the most profitable for affiliates. Diversifying your income streams is a solid strategy, especially if affiliate marketing is your only source of income.
Which affiliate program pays the most?
Ethos Life and Service Direct are among the highest-paying insurance affiliate programs. However, the payment size isn’t the only factor you should consider; make sure your traffic meets the qualification requirements, and there’s enough demand for your type of traffic.
