In the performance marketing space, one of the most exciting — and fun — ways to make a lot of money (without lots of clicks or traffic) is to promote offers that have high payouts.

By high payout I’m not talking about earning $20 or $30 per sale, but rather promoting products that pay upward of thousands per sale. If that sparked your interest, keep reading.

BIG MONEY: CLOSER THAN YOU THINK

I stumbled onto the high-ticket affiliate area in a roundabout way. After a friend told me he had gone to the all-inclusive vacation resort, Sandals, I personally ended up at the five-star resort on the islands of Turks and Caicos myself. As an affiliate I, of course, immediately spoke with their marketing people. I discovered that when customers booked through an affiliate link, their program paid between 6-8 percent of the vacation’s gross amount. For a family of four that books a highend, 12-day trip, that's a potential commission of up to $2,000 per sale. Not bad for one click.

PURSUE EXCLUSIVE NICHES

When researching high-ticket offers and programs, affiliates will generally find that as the price-per-sale goes up, the market tends to get more niche. The highest affiliate commission I have been able to discover is from ProformativeInsights. com that pays $10,000 per sale (and more) for business-to-business consulting. There are, of course, a number of other high-ticket affiliate offers out there that might also be appealing to those in the performance marketing space.

PURSUE CONTINUOUS PAYOUTS

Another one of my favorite high-ticket affiliate offers is a product on the ClickBank affiliate network. Believe it or not, there is a ClickBank offer available that costs buyers $4,000 per month. Yes, you read that correctly. The high price tag aside, I have a hard time believing it because of the recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) crackdown on “how to make money” offers and the tight legal regulations for offers in the gaming space. But the people who purchase this product, which gives sports picks at DayTradeSports.com, actually pay $4,000 each and every month, which is money — good money — in an affiliate’s pocket.

How many of those sales would you need to make to earn a comfortable living if you are receiving the standard affiliate commission of 30 percent per sale, every month, as long as the customer stays on board? Not many; and it sure beats making a puny $1.75 commission banging out the ads on Google’s pay-per-click system. This offer has been on ClickBank for four-plus years and is doing very well according to ClickBank executives. Affiliates need special approval to even see the offer, so it’s best to develop a relationship with a ClickBank affiliate manager before trying to get approved to promote the program — or any offer of this level.

Speaking of programs offering continuous payouts, did you know that the oldest “continuity” programs in the business world come from the insurance industry? It makes sense when you think about it. Car insurance is a monthly expense for anyone who drives a car, which makes it a continuous payout. One such program I discovered comes from the Unum Insurance Company (available on the RevenueAds Affiliate Network), which has a very high payout offer of $250 per sale. Unum is also quite affiliate friendly, calling their affiliates “brokers” (so now you can tell friends and colleagues you are no longer merely an affiliate marketer, but that you “broker” for large insurance deals on the resale market).

PURSUE YOUR PASSION

Another bit of advice, which goes to the very heart of what newbie Internet marketers and website owners must learn the hard way, is that successful people in the affiliate business follow their passions.

When I’m at one of the 10-15 Internet marketing events I attend each year, I circulate from group to group because I’m a JV (joint venture) broker in the personal development and meditation niche — which is my passion. What I notice is that the guys in the health and fitness niche are all stocky, muscular and walk around like John Wayne. The guys in the dating niche are all competing with each other to stand out among the crowd in their typical peacocked-out way. And the women in the spiritual development niche are usually sitting quietly among themselves drinking tea and commiserating on the latest marketing techniques and successes. The point, of course, is to follow your passion.

For example, if boating is your passion and you have websites and products in that niche, you will find no shortage of offers with high payouts to promote. This landing page (http://wsm.co/OXrald) for example pays $300 to affiliates able to target maritime workers who are injured while working on a ship. The tagline, “Maritime accidents happen daily. Most people do not realize their rights,” is one sure to catch the attention of someone who is on your boating site and was injured working in the shipping industry.

INSIGHTS ON OFFER RESEARCH

Now an important thing to do when picking an affiliate offer, and in life in general, is to do your research. The offer above pays $300 from the RevenueAds Affiliate Network, but only $260 from another network. Why is this and how do you find the highest payouts?

One of the best places to research offers is on my friend Mark Roth’s website Offervault.com. He has almost every affiliate offer in the market cross-referenced for affiliate marketers to compare. What happens in this business is that some of the affiliate networks will have the offer directly and exclusively from the advertising company, and will then broker it out to other networks. These networks consequently have to pay affiliates a little less because the second network has to pay a commission to the first.

When dealing with small affiliate offers this may not be that big of a deal, but as the payouts go up you’ll want to ask the network if they have “an exclusive” on the offer, meaning that no other affiliate networks can run it, or you can ask if the affiliate network you are working with is “direct” with the offer — usually meaning you will get the highest payout. Obviously, it’s better to get closer to the source, without a lot of interference between the advertiser and your bank account.

More money, less work — that’s what we all want right? Adding some high-ticket offers into your affiliate marketing mix or focusing on them exclusively is a great way to make this happen.

About the Author: Mike Evans teaches people how to become spiritually enlightened at TheSerenityPath.com. His latest book, “How to Meditate, A Quick Start Guide for Beginners” is available on Amazon.com and (as an affiliate offer of course) at http://wsm.co/OXonbV.