Q: I don’t get it. This sponsor has a pay-per-click program I really want to promote but this other webmaster told me that they only pay on the second click! What does he mean by “second click”? Is that a bad thing or a good thing?

A: A second-click payout is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It is what it is. A click program is where a sponsor pays you a little bit of money each time a user “clicks” on a sponsor banner. Usually that money amount is a couple of cents per click. However, a click program is rarely this simple.

For one, most sponsors prefer your clicks come from unique visitors. A unique visitor is one who has never clicked your specially coded sponsor banner before. If one surfer clicks your same banner forty times, it will still only count as one click according to your sponsor. It’s rare to find a sponsor who’ll pay out on initial banner clicks even when those clicks emanate from unique visitors.

These days, most click programs pay when a unique user “clicks through” from your banner, past the sponsor’s full-page ad and onto their tour page. How it works is this: Your sponsor includes a link to their full-page ad within the referrer code they give you. Your surfer clicks your sponsor banner and they are taken to your sponsor’s full-page ad. When your surfer clicks in order to continue on to your sponsor’s tour page, they have performed a second-page click. It all sounds complicated but sponsors do it this way to make sure you’re sending them interested customers.