Forex Affiliation: A marketing scheme where an individual gets rewarded for collecting referrals for the company using marketing resources like links, banners, etc. is called affiliation. In Forex trade, an affiliate serves as an IB (online introducing broker) directing potential traders to forex brokers they are serving. A simple sign-up process is required for becoming an affiliate.
Referral link: Generally the link of the affiliate is a code following the domain of the forex broker, e.g. say for a forex broker ABC, the link would be like:
http://www.forexsite.com/home.php?id=5
where id=5 represents that the referring link belongs the affiliate with id as 5.
Methods of Compensation:
Forex affiliates are compensated by the following four methods:
1. Rebates: Compensation is based in the volume made by their clients. E.g. an affiliate receives 1 pip per clients’ trade lot.
2. CPA: Affiliate is paid when the referred traders sign up and invest a starting amount. Compensation may vary as per the initial minimum investment required by the account.
3. CPL: affiliate is paid if the referred traders leave some information (name, email, phone, etc.) for the broker e.g. by signing up for a demo account.
4. Revenue sharing: Affiliate gets paid from the revenue collected by the broker owing to clients’ trading losses.
A ‘hybrid’ of the above four methods can also be used as a compensation method e.g. CPA and CPL together. Another program called ‘2nd Tier’ can also be used wherein an affiliate refer other affiliates to the broker. Affiliates get paid either in form of fixed price per affiliate or according to the revenues of the referred affiliate.
Things to Consider: It is imperative to have an idea about the broker before becoming an affiliate for him. Looking Internet is the best source to confirm a brokers’ reputation. Make sure you are not scammed and you actually get paid for your hard work. To know your broker, start with:
1. Who is your Broker – See the recognition status of the broker. Look into the brokers feature set like spreads, customer support, etc. as your referred client would decide to register to the broker on basis of that. See if the broker offers multiple languages support and variety of account types. A variety of clients can be drawn to the broker, and clients are all that you need.
2. Affiliate Back Office and reporting: Check if the broker offers some sort of progress monitoring system for its affiliates. Some brokers pay you according to your monthly counts. Such programs should be avoided. Look for an affiliate program that offers immediacy. You should be able to see real time results of your client referrals. That way you can also assess a particular marketing strategy that you might have implemented at your end.
3. Deposit/Withdraw options: Check the level of ease of two processes; cash depositing by clients and commission withdrawal by the affiliates.
After checking the above three essential aspects, it is a good practice to have a friend use your referral link to sign up and assure your affiliate account is updated.
Affiliate Programs: Brokers like AvaForex, Easy Forex, eToro, Forex Yard, Trade View, etc. offer affiliate marketing programs. It may be noticed that none of these brokers are UK, Swiss or UK based. The reason for this could be that either these (UK, US and Swiss) brokers use conventional offline marketing methods or they are strictly regulated and their affiliates are required to abide by certain standard rules, thus it is not open to common public.
