There are several different types of affiliate programs, each one of them with its specific advantages and disadvantages, different features that are designed to work on each kind of arrangement in the affiliate marketing. It's important to be on top of the type business you choose according to your target audience, so that you can pick the best affiliate program to fit your necessities. Choosing the type of affiliate program that would fit better in your plans can be an essential step to the achievement of your expectations, especially if you are working on a dating affiliate program basis.

As a figure of speech, there are four main types of affiliate programs available on the web. Let's check a brief explanation about each one of them:

- Pay Per Sale (commission based affiliate program): this is the most common and popular type of affiliate program. Basically, this program pays a pre-established percentage of commission on the revenue produced by the sales of services and products purchased by some visitor coming from your site. Some of these programs also offer bonuses and/or prizes to sites that reach a better performance each month, while others work on a flat commission basis, regardless of the amount of sales per month. It's up to the merchant to choose which is the best affiliate program to the work he's aiming.

- Pay per Click (click through programs): a very simple type of affiliate program. The site earns a small amount (usually ranging from $0,01 to $0,20, in the most popular programs) for each and every visitor sent to the target site. Some of these programs work on a second-page-click basis, which means that you will only get paid if the visitors click on one of the links of the page reached through your site, moving to a different site. The type of program you will choose (click through or second page click) will influence directly on your profits (second-page-click sites may substantially reduce your gains, while click through programs are more favorable).

- Bounty (or flat fee referral): when you refer to a customer, you will get a one off payment without any further commissions on any purchase should he make in the future regardless of the customer's expenditure. Generally, there's a specific price rate for paying a consumer (normally from $10 to $20), but some websites have more complex fee arrangements. In which the mix of products and services that the website had closed in a given period of time will determine income.

- Tiered affiliate programs: can be divided into 3 different types: single-tier programs that only reward transactions generated by the affiliate. In addition, two-tier programs not only reward affiliate generated dealings but also providing an extra reward for each new affiliate brought by to the arrangement. Finally, there are multi-tier affiliate programs, where the incomes move in a sort of pyramid arrangement. The first affiliate will earn a percentage of the incomes of all those joining the program afterwards. In turn, each affiliate will receive a percentage plus a percentage on top of those ones placed above of them on the pyramid.