eLearning Platforms From An Affiliate’s Viewpoint
In the eCommerce environment an affiliate program is seen as a good strategy. In order to face the eMarket requirements, some eLearning platforms decided to promote such a program, others not. An affiliate program is a sort of a "game" between three players: the online merchant web site (the advertiser), the affiliate web site (the publisher), and the customer (the consumer). The affiliate receives a commission through the traffic he sends on the merchant’s web site. This traffic implies the last player, the customer, who can visit the web site, buy something from it or only see the merchant’s banner link on the affiliate's web site.
I made some research based on 5 eLearning Platforms From A Teacher's Point Of View and I gathered the information from a 10 rows table suitable for this kind of program.
eLearning Platforms Affiliate Programs Comparison Τable
| Questions | udemy.com | novoed.com | udacity.com | icompany.training | lynda.com |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offerings | Learning, teaching, and training | Learning, teaching, and training | Learning, teaching, and training | Learning and teaching | Learning, teaching, and training |
| Affiliates Vs. Partners | Has an "Affiliates" program: Discover & Promote, Monetize, Make Money (here) | Doesn’t have a specific affiliate program | Doesn’t have a specific affiliate program | Has a "Become an affiliate" program: Join the network, Place the banner/text on your site, Earn your commission (here) | The usual term "affiliate" is presented as a "partner", so it has a "Partner" program: Partners simply add our text links, banner ads, or videos to their websites and emails (here) |
| The affiliates’ offer Vs. The partners’ offer | Runs in the Rakuten Affiliate Network (LinkShare): Publishers – websites or publishers refer traffic to the advertiser sites; Advertisers – when that traffic results in a sale, a commission is paid to the publisher Sales & Commissions – LinkShare tracks referrals and transactions, collects fees, and pays publishers (here) | - | - | Runs with PayDot.com: Commission type - CPA (cost per action) high converting brands, high commissions, and overall great affiliate offers. Easily accessible merchant resources and advanced linking condes Trustworthy and exclusive offers with the highest guaranteed pay-outs (here) | Runs with affpaying.com: Commission type - CPS (cost per sale) (here) |
| Explicit earnings | 50% (here) | - | - | 30% Commission of all sales that came through teachers (here) | 40% For a monthly membership, 10% for an annual membership, and 10% for all gift subscriptions (it’s received when the partners has accumulated more than $50 in commissions; via check / direct deposit) (here) |
| Payment | PayPal | - | - | PayPal | PayPal |
| Cookies | 30 days | - | - | 60 days | No cookie |
| Application – Let’s get started! | 3-5 business days | - | - | Not specified | Not specified |
| The contract | (here) | - | - | (here) | (here) |
| Countries worldwide offerings | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2009 / 2010 | 2012 | 2011 | 2014 | 1995 / 2002 |
The findings
- Platforms (Udemy and iCompay) offer an “affiliate” marketing program.
- Lynda has a different name for the affiliate program called “partner” program, but has the same structure as those running on the previous mention platforms.
- NovoEd and Udacity haven’t this specific program, but they have partners/ partnerships translated into teachers programs; those teachers can be affiliates and gain money in this way, but one can’t be an affiliate without being a teacher.
- You can see that those which have the program have chosen to run with different affiliate sites such LinkShare (Udemy), PayDot (iCompany), Affpaying (Lynda):
- Linkshare is a Japanese brand, owned by the eCommerce company Rakuten and operates as a network, with thousands of programs to choose from.
- PayDot is a British company and operates as a network.
- Affpaying is an American company and also operates as a network.
- Due to that fact they have also different commissions:
- Per action [cost/pay per action = the merchant pays (to the affiliate) for any specified action – click, contract, newsletter].
- Per sale [= the merchant pays (to the affiliate) for the sailing procedure – the customer buys something from the merchant’s web site though the affiliate site].
- Usually the payment is made using PayPal.
- Udemy cookie offering lasts 30 days and iCompany one lasts 60 days.
- On the Udemy page is specified that the affiliate can begin his/her “part of the play” in 3-5 business days.
- Some of these 5 eLearning platforms offer also courses of affiliate marketing (Udemy and Lynda).
- Plus, there are other affiliate programs an eCommerce company could utilize like: Amazon.com Associates, eBay Partner Network, CPA Affiliate Network, Google Adsense, CJ Affiliate by Conversant, etc.
Accordingly, these platforms could have much more affiliates networks or switch to the best one which brings them more positive results and share the same emotions.
So affiliate. Very program. Wow.
References
Kristopher B. Jones (2010), Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 164-166; pp. 262-280.
