Actual Facts -What Is Affiliate Marketing? Articles | Marketing

By: Kathryn Ali

Fundamentally, affiliate marketing is a method for online businesses to advertise themselves. Each time the affiliate makes a sale, has a new member subscribe to their email newsletter or a person visits their website from their own advertising methods he/she earns a small percentage from the business.

In the year 1996, Amazon.com launched their Associates Program. It became one of the leading affiliate programs known online.

To benefit from Amazon’s huge membership/customer base, small publishers and individual authors link their websites to Amazon.com.  Amazon earns a percentage for each item sold by the affiliate.

In order for an affiliate to be successful, he/she needs to have many sites that a business can link too.  They require high quality web sites to produce a superior membership/customer foundation. 

An online business really likes affiliate marketing because it is ~ FREE ~ until the affiliate increases business and creates a strong customer base.   This form of marketing, with the “pay for performance” is a great opportunity for new businesses starting up and smaller businesses with less cash-flow to obtain such advertising they may otherwise not have been able to afford.

 An affiliate marketing program can be run with a couple of methods:

>> Own your website and program which does need quite a bit of upkeep and work.

>> Contract out the website for someone else to create/maintain …etc which is the best  
 alternative for most online businesses.

How To Locate An Affiliate Program:

You can easily find quite a few directories that are available to assist you in finding an affiliate program.  Online you can do a Google Search and you will find many online affiliate directories which give information on hundreds or marketers.

To find an online program with an affiliate link, remember to look in these categories:

>>Pay Per Click (Search Affiliates)

>> Comparison-shopping directories.

>>Sites which offer special sales or bonus points for your sales

>>Coupon or money-back web sites

Multi-Tier Programs -Be Informed

As a newbie of the affiliate marketing field, please use caution with multi-tiered programs. They dispense the commissions earned through a hierarchy which is also known as a pyramid referral system.  They are similar to the programs (pyramid) that were around in the 1980’s and 1990’s. They paid the level one affiliates for referrals from levels two and upwards.  A trustworthy affiliate program should be paying the affiliate for the referral that he/she brings in and not earning from another person’s advertising and work.

Affiliate Marketing is a great method to get the word out about a new business web site. Research every affiliate with awareness to make sure you are doing business with a trustworthy site that has a good reputation which will increase your business and not
decrease it.

By: Kathryn Ali

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