Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s or company’s products. You find a product you like, promote it to others through a number of marketing initiatives and then earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.
It’s based on revenue sharing. If you have a product and want to sell more, you can offer promoters a financial incentive through an affiliate program to sell your product. If you don't have a product and want to make money, you can promote a product that you feel has value and earn an income from it as an affiliate marketer.
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that once you join an affiliate program, the merchant or network provides you with all the marketing material - such as banners and links that you simply just include on your site or promote through your marketing strategy of choice. Some even give you copy and other useful material like podcasts and trainings. All you need to do is focus on your marketing strategy and driving traffic to their offering via your website, blog or email marketing campaign.
Affiliate marketing is the corner stone of my business. Why? As an entrepreneur, I had to learn very quickly that I can't do it all, be it all, create it all and then go and gain all the experience to get the credibility to get people to buy from me. I had to get smart about where I spend my time, and that was to focus on what I'm good at. Then leverage tools and other peoples' knowledge to help me get to where I want to be. Why try and reinvent something that has already been designed, tested, results proven and packaged - think about how much time, energy, money and, most importantly - EXPERIENCE - it takes to offer a product that promises results?
There are people who've been there, "done it" and have turned what they know into quality products that offer value, empower people and make life easier. This is why the knowledge business is booming - we want to learn from experience, not text books. We don't want theory, we want to learn from real people who we can relate to, who've been through the trenches, who can lessen our learning curve in achieving what we want by showing us what worked and what didn't, what to look out for and what to avoid in getting the results and things that we want faster.
There are four parties involved in the affiliate marketing process:
The Merchant: This is the party that creates the product, also known as the creator, the seller, the brand, the retailer, or the vendor.
The Publisher: The affiliate who advertises and markets the merchant's product in return for a commission based on sales or leads.
The Consumer: The customer or consumer who buys the merchants product from the publisher / affiliate.
The Network: The network acts as an intermediary between the affiliate and the merchant where they handle the payment and product delivery process. Network directories manage a number of affiliate programs.
Not all affiliate programs are facilitated by an affiliate network and many businesses have a direct affiliate program.
Cookies are used to help the website keep track of visitor clicks linked to affiliate offers and sales over the cookie duration period specified by the merchant or network provider.
You can start promoting affiliate products in your blog, on your website or you can create a niche website where you promote products and/or services by category.
By creating content in the form of tutorials, review posts, resource pages or through email marketing, you include your affiliate link and/or banners that have been supplied by the Merchant or Network provider.
You then want to optimize your web pages and track your rankings in Google so that Google starts sending traffic your way.
The best way to find suitable affiliate products to promote is through an affiliate program directory, which is essentially a database of different affiliate programs online. This way you can find the right program, understand all the details about and how the program works and then sign up to join the program. Here's a couple of directories to get you started:
A tip:- Most affiliate programs have an application process so make sure you read their terms and conditions before you apply to ensure that you have everything they require in place. Some are particularly strict and you want to know what their expectations are and any advertising and promoting limitations.
