Affiliates, influencers or ads: what each one costs and when to use it

There are three common ways to get more people to know an online product. They don't exclude each other; they differ in who pays, when and who carries the risk.

Paid ads

You pay per click or per thousand views, up front. Fast results and full control, but you pay whether you sell or not, and when you stop paying the traffic stops.

Influencers

You pay a fixed amount per post or campaign. You reach an audience that trusts the creator, but you pay before you know how many sales it brings.

Affiliates

You pay a commission after the sale. The risk moves to the partner: if they don't sell, it costs nothing. The content (an article, a video) keeps selling for months. In return, it takes longer to get going: you have to recruit and look after partners.

Side by side

	Ads	Influencers	Affiliates
When you pay	before	before	after the sale
You pay per	click or view	post	sale, lead or subscription
Risk	yours	yours	shared
Speed	immediate	fast	gradual

Combine them

• Pay influencers by commission, or a low fixed fee plus commission, with their own coupon code.
• Let media buyers buy ads at their own cost and pay them per sale.
• Use your own ads to test messages, and hand the ones that work to affiliates.

In RastroAff

Influencers, bloggers and media buyers join as affiliates, each with their own link or coupon, and you see each one's sales in reports. For media buyers, see also ad platform conversions.