Introduction to Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an upcoming market. An increasing number of products and services are purchased online these days and more and more companies look to promote these products and services through affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate marketing?

As an affiliate or partner of a company you actually take over a part of the marketing and the promotion of that company. Your roll is to promote the companies products to generate them a higher turnover.

Concerning the turnover which is realized by means of your work, a certain provision is paid to you. With the sale process and the supply of goods or services you have actually nothing to do. You only ensure that the company gets more customers. To promote a company you get access to all kinds of advertisement material, such as banners and text-links. Generally you use this material on your own Internet site. This sounds perhaps cryptic but it will become more clear, during this course, by means of examples.

Selling your own products through affiliate marketing.

It is also possible to sell your own products through affiliate marketing. In that case other affiliates will market your product for you. This can be done by joining an affiliate network or running your own affiliate tracking software. This will be covered later in this course.

What is reseller marketing

The terms "reseller" and "affiliate " marketing can be confusing, but there is an important difference. If you act as reseller or a company be you, you are more more than a promoter. You are then also responsible for the support to the customer and the customer considers you as the representer of the original firm.

Many webhosting companies offer reseller marketing opportunities. You then get the arrangement concerning a certain band width and that you can independently sell to your customers.

At the moment we will not go deeper into this subject and concentrate first on affiliate marketing.

What does it cost to join an affiliate program?

Joining an affiliate program should never cost money. If it does, then just back off and look for another one. Mind that it would be very strange that you have to pay for promoting someones product..

How does the compensation system work?

That varies. Generally there are this possibilities:
  • Click: (cpc): compensation for a click on the Internet site of the company that you promote, earnings vary from 1 penny up to some euros / dollars.
  • View: (by 1000) (cpm): compensation for showing banners on your Internet site
  • Lead: (cpl): compensation for a registration for a service or for example for making an appointment or requesting a brochure; earnings vary from 10 pennies up to 100 euro or even more
  • Sale (sales): compensation as a percentage concerning sales which has been generated through your site
2- and 3-tier Affiliate Programs

Lots of Affiliate Programs offer 2-tier or 3-tier programs. With a 2-tier affiliate program you not only get payed if you realize a sale but also when someone that joined the affiliate program through a link on your website or in your e-mail, realizes a sale. With a 3-tier program you also earn if someone signs in through your affiliate and makes a sale.

How do you know what your earnings are?

When you join an affiliate program of network you get a so called affiliate tracking code. You can use this code on your website or in your emails. Your sales are registered through this code. After you joined an affiliate network or program you get access to the statistics and you can see what your revenues are.

What can be earned?

This question I can't answer. Earnings can vary a lot and depend on how you handle it and the programs you choose. More about that in the next chapter.
Last modified: Thursday, 24 July 2014, 2:54 PM