By Ron Cripps
Understanding Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is a online phrase used to describe the promotion of
internet businesses by the channel of affiliate programs and the marketing of these
products on websites and it dates back to the mid 90's.By doing this the vendor
compensates the affiliate (also known as the publisher) a approved percentage
of commission based on the amount of trade their website brings the merchant
company.
Some companies such as Clickbank, Paydotcom and Shareasale typically
have set percentage rates for affiliates which can be up to 75% for some
products. Some consider affiliate marketing to be a form of revenue sharing or
another term regularly used is commission based advertising.
In the early days of "affiliate marketing", it was
associated as another structure of network marketing or multi-level marketing
(MLM) and as a result of this misconception allot of online businesses made the
decision to use the expression "performance marketing" to steer clear
of any relation to affiliate marketing. This also created a large problem for
affiliates in the past, as many online users had a propensity to
frown on whatever thing that even looked like multi-level marketing.
Over time and with a great deal of determination from those that are now
established as super affiliates it has turned out to be the most cost effective
way for merchants to market their products or services online as it is very
efficient in the fact that the affiliate has to do all the work to make the
sale. So as a result of this, many online companies especially those that
embraced this form of marketing in the beginning owe a tremendous amount to
affiliate marketing as a perfect example just take a look at amazon.com and the
way it has become the done thing for online companies to include
affiliate marketing in many of their online strategies to promote their
products.
The Advantages Of Affiliate Marketing
The model of revenue sharing has been around for some time, allot longer
than online business and the internet. But the idea of affiliate marketing has
taken it to new levels, and become a primary form of advertising and bringing
in business for all types of e-commerce. Internet merchants find affiliate
marketing highly advantageous due to the fact that it presents little to no
risk both for the merchant and the 'affiliate".
Here is how it all works, the affiliate will earn money if the affiliate
brings to the merchants website, either through on-line links on the affiliates
website - or through email, blogs, RSS feeds and many other kinds of on-line
communication that are available to the affiliate. If a sale is made or the
desired action is accomplished then the affiliate will earn a designated commission
payment from the vendor or affiliate network.
Some merchants (only about 1% of affiliate marketing) use a
cost-per-click remuneration system but this is now starting to grow as a viable
form of money generation from main stream affiliates by using the CPA marketing
networks, which simply means that the affiliate earns some form of commission
every time a website visitor clicks on an advert on their site or when you send
out an email with a affiliate link.
However in the past and mainly due to the many
"blackhatters"and fraudsters online that were taking advantage
of this method by way of creating such things as (ad-ware, sending spam, or
keyword heavy and useless indexing sites) this form of remuneration is now
allot more regulated and even to the extent of having IP addresses tracked and
accounts canceled if you are generating what is considered as fraudulent clicks
and for many in the past this form of advertising had become too risky for
merchants to use.
What Are The Distinctive Forms Of Affiliate Marketing
There are a few different ways that an affiliate can earn commissions
online. Firstly you need to decide which of these is right for you and then
join the merchant affiliate program this is so any payment can be received
through any referrals from your website to the merchant, Here are four methods
that are currently used online today, however you need to read the terms and
conditions of each affiliate program you wish to join.
- Pay Per Click Marketing is simply a strategy that affiliates use
where they display advertisements on their affiliate site and they are
then paid when a customer clicks on that website advertisement whether it
is a text link or image link.
- Emailing your subscriber lists sending legit emails to your
website opt-ins with your affiliate link embedded "Spam Is Not
Tolerated" make sure you study the TOS of the affiliate program
before doing this.
- CPA Affiliate Marketing is when one of your website
visitors registers with a specific site whether this is a free newsletter
or subscription, free offers from other companies are represented and
advertised through this form of marketing as well.
- Clickbank, Shareasle, Paydotcom are all affiliate marketing
networks they have many thousands of products or services for you to
choose from as well as being free to join. Some programs even allow
multi-tier or what is called a recurring payment structure set up.
Hopefully our article has helped you to understand more about affiliate
marketing and we would like to wish you well in all of your undertakings
online.
Ron has been working as an affiliate marketer for more than five years
with great success and has also created a blog called Affiliate X Files
where you can get information on affiliate marketing and marketing
strategies for promoting affiliate products and marketing your website
effectively online.
Article Source:EzineArticles expert=Ron Cripps
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