There’s always been frequent discussions about Google Adsense, paid blogging and Clickbank, but has anyone heard about credit card affiliate programs? They are relatively easy to join and setup, and you get paid anywhere from US$4 to US$80 per approved referral.

Credit card affiliate programs like CardOffers let you setup links on your existing website/blog, or create an exclusive credit card website easily. I created Credit Card Deals using the available javascript codes, where I simply cut-and-paste the codes for my choice of cards to anywhere on the webpage.

There are 3 display options available, i.e. bullet form (shown below), short review and long review:

When your visitor clicks on the link, he/she is taken to a page to fill-up an online application form. Once approved, you will receive an affiliate commission ranging from US$4 (e.g. prepaid debit cards) to US$80 (e.g. business credit cards) - the usual Cost-per-Action (CPA) model used for affiliate programs like Amazon Associates.

While the high commission rates and minimum work effort may entice you to join immediately, there are a couple of challenges to consider. Firstly, the credit card niche is very competitve and advertising on Google Adwords for, say, “credit card” will cost you upwards of US$1 per click. There are also certain restrictions like you cannot bid on the same keywords as the credit card issuer, due to competitive reasons.

So unless you have a high traffic website/blog, you will need to look for cheaper advertising alternatives.

Looking again at Credit Card Deals, search engine spiders will not be able to see the content like you see because of the use of javascript codes. The different webpages will look like duplicates and with very little content to them. This is one of the reason why the website has been penalized and dropped into Google’s Supplemental Index instead of the main Index.

Conversion rate is also relatively low at under 1%, i.e. out of 100 visitors who click on the credit card link, only 1 ends up being a successful applicant. Fortunately, there are many potential applicants every year and most people subscribe to more than one credit card. Do note that such affiliate programs are mostly limited to the US, Canada and UK market:

The other drawback is that there are frequent changes to the credit card offers in the program and depending on your choice of links, you may have to spend time adding/removing links from time to time.

Still, I personally think that it’s a worthwhile affiliate program to join because of the better commissions compared to the 1% I get for selling computer products via Amazon Associates. Credit cards also have a much wider appeal, i.e. it can be sold to anyone of your visitor.