What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a cooperative effort between merchants and an affiliate’s website. Affiliate marketing is a huge business piece on the Internet. It is one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner (affiliate) allows the use of their website for the promotion of the affiliate merchant's products. In exchange, the merchant would pay the affiliate based on the click, sale or lead. The types of affiliate marketing are Pay-per-click, Pay-per-sale and Pay-per-lead.

An affiliate marketing merchant is a website owner that wants to take advantage of performance based marketing. The benefits to the affiliate marketing merchant are many. Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective ways to advertise online. The affiliate merchant gains more exposure and a wider market to advertise a product or service. The more affiliate websites promoting the merchants products, the more traffic views the products which usually converts to sales.

The affiliate marketing merchant only pays for the agreed upon results. The affiliate marketing merchant provides trackable advertising content in the form of banners and text links for the affiliate marketer.

The affiliate marketer benefits by having a ready supply of products to sell. The affiliate marketer is a web site owner or emailer who promotes one or more merchants and their products. Commissions are paid on the sales generated by the affiliate marketer's efforts. Well placed banner ads or text links on an affiliates website can produce sales. The affiliate marketer's website should have content related to the products being promoted. If your website content is geared to young families, promoting retirement products probably won't produce many sales for you or your affiliate merchant.

Affiliate marketing is typically being run by affiliate networks. Affiliate networks are composed affiliates and merchants. Each has their special function and role when it comes to affiliate marketing. The affiliate network acts as a third party between the merchant and the merchant's affiliates. The affiliate network provides the technology to deliver the merchant’s campaigns and offers. The affiliate network also collects the commission or sales fees from the merchant and pays the appropriate merchant affiliates which are part of the program. Five of the best known affiliate networks are ClickBank, Commission Junction, Google Adsense, LinkShare.com and Yahoo.

Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some benefits in affiliate marketing.

There are many benefits on the merchant's side. It gives the merchant a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques. The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, which can convert to sales. Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a customer purchases.

The affiliate also enjoys many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link to the merchant's website. Hopefully, prospective customers will click the links and proceed to make a purchase. The affiliate earns a commission on the purchase. The more clicks and sales there are, the more profit for the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from. You can find affiliate programs for every product under the sun. Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website.

In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort. You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the convenience of your own home. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant. You do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.

Because of the global reach of the internet, you can find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your affiliate earning potential. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved. If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income. You can earn money even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. Affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

© 2007 - What Is Affiliate Marketing? is one of a series of articles on Internet Marketing published by Bill Rothermal.

Novtec, Inc

What Is Affiliate Marketing?