What Is Affiliate Marketing?

by | Affiliate Marketing

 

If you are interested in making money on the net, you need to know about affiliate marketing.  Affiliate marketing simply means that you are promoting and selling someone else’s product or service.  Many people get their start in internet marketing as an affiliate because it can be much easier and cheaper than creating a product or service to sell, so it is possible to make money fast.  Another advantage of affiliate marketing is that in many cases you won’t need to deal with most customer service issues and you may not need to actually handle the transaction or deliver the product.  In fact, sometimes you can make easy money just for sending targeted traffic to someone else and letting them do the rest of the work.  Or, if you already have a product or service, you can create a network of affiliates that sends you hungry buyers around the clock.
There are three different ways to earn money as an affiliate marketer;
Per Sale – Commissions are earned based on each sale made.  Commissions are based on a percentage of the sale or a set amount per sale.  Some products generate a recurring commission every month.
Per Lead – With a per lead payout an affiliate earns commission by referring a predefined prospect or “lead” even if the prospect never buys anything.  A lead may be defined simply as someone who submits their email address, zip code or other information.
Per Click – Affiliates can earn anywhere from a few pennies to a few dollars simply for getting a visitor to click on a link or ad even if the click never results in a sale or lead.
There are many different affiliate programs, and most of them are free to join.  A few of the most popular options are Clickbank, Amazon, Commission Junction and the Google Publisher Network.  Each of these affiliate programs will allow you to choose from thousands of offers to promote.  Clickbank is for digital products.  You can find thousands of products on a wide range of topics and many Clickbank vendors provide high quality material to help you promote their product.  Some Clickbank vendors will pay you a 75% commission for each sale!  If you have a ebook or digital product to sell Clickbank will give you access to 100,000 + affiliates who will bring customers to your door for a percentage of the final sale.  Amazon features thousands of products from the Kindle and ebooks to electronics and even automotive and industrial items.  You can find almost anything on Amazon.  This can be a big advantage for an affiliate because if you refer someone to Amazon and they buy a Kindle, you also get paid for the ebooks they buy and everything else they buy within a certain amount of time.  Commission Junction also has a wide array of products to promote like web hosting, online malls, matchmaking services and major retailers.  Commission Junction vendors provide text and banner ads and some also provide data feeds that allow you to import their entire product catalog into your website.  The Google publisher network includes thousands of quality products and boasts useful features like publisher only specials and the ability to search for products by criteria such as keywords, brand, advertiser name, product name, UPC, ISBN, MPN and/or SKU.

Affiliate marketing isn’t a get rich quick solution, but it is possible to make some fast money and at times, some easy money.  To be truly successful at affiliate marketing, you need thoughtful planning and discipline.  It can take a lot of hard work to make money online as an affiliate marketer, but the rewards can be well worth the effort.

Read my post about “How To Succeed At Affiliate Marketing“

Related Blogs