Affiliate Marketing

What is Affiliate Marketing?   

Affiliate marketing is a very well-established business model in the online retail world. It has been around for more than 14 years. 

Affiliate marketing can be a highly lucrative way of making money on the Internet. There are thousands of affiliate marketers worldwide, with more people trying affiliate marketing every day.

It is based on referral marketing, a very old business model. You get paid only when you produce results.

In affiliate marketing, merchants or "online retailers", allows outsiders who are not employees, or "Affiliates" to advertise the merchant's goods on our websites. In return, the merchant pays us a commission when our visitors make a purchase through our websites.

Who are "Affiliates"?

People who make money by promoting for merchants as described above are called “affiliates.”

If you choose to try this method of making money online - promoting products for an affiliate merchant - you can call yourself an "affiliate marketer." We'll discuss a little more about what affiliates do on the next screen.

Some other terms for "affiliate" that you may see used are:

• Publishers
• Associates
• Program Partners

What is an Affiliate Program?

You will hear the term "affiliate program" used a great deal. When you join a merchant’s “affiliate program,” it means you are signing up to promote the merchant's products or services online.

An "affiliate program" is the administrative setup that manages the relationship between a merchant (like Amazon.com) and the people (like you and me) who make online sales for them.

Joining an affiliate program is relatively easy. It usually involves filling out a form and agreeing to abide by the "affiliate agreement." This agreement spells out the legal arrangement that governs how and when the merchant pays you, what constitutes a valid sale, what you can and can't do when selling the product, and much more.

"Affiliate marketing program" is the most common term used to describe this arrangement between merchants and affiliate marketers. But there are other terms used to describe the same arrangement. Some of the other terms you might find are:

• Associate Program
• Referral Program
• Partner Program
• Bounty Program
• Revenue Sharing Program

All these words can be used interchangeably with the term "affiliate program."

An Example of Affiliate Marketing

Here's an example of an affiliate and merchant relationship and the way the referrals and commissions work:

Anthony loves to grill. He creates new recipes and tries different styles of grilling , and he really enjoys teaching others about it.

So, they started a website teaching people how to grill. On it, he posts recipes, gives tips and advice and tells the readers about the products they like to use - from knives and cutting boards to seasonings and cookbooks.

Anthony became an affiliate for an online retailer of grilling accessories - we'll use Cooking.com to make this example a little more real.

On Anthony's site, he has a recipe for a grilled filet. In the instructions, he tells the readers not only how to grill the steak, but also the exact temperature the steak should be. He shows the exact meat thermometer he uses which links to the Cooking.com website to let his readers know that they can purchase that thermometer there.

When his visitors click on the link and buy the thermometer- he earns a commission.

 NEXT>>>PAGE 2 Concepts

1. Affiliate Marketing
2. Affiliate Marketing Concepts
3. Affiliate Marketing Business Models
4. Affiliate Marketing Terms