Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site

Affiliate Marketing Overview 

An affiliate is an individual or company associated, or affiliated, with a particular company. The affiliate agrees to promote the products of services of the company in exchange for a commission of some kind when a search or sale is successful. 

The affiliates use the same methods as the primary company in bringing visitors, or traffic, to a website. But with a host of affiliates also promoting a product line or service, the advertising company can reach a far greater number of potential buyers. This additional advertising is almost always completely commission based so there is little or no risk to the company. 

Affiliate marketing is a large source of income for many webmasters. These marketers build websites promoting the advertising company or use their banners and ads on a related website. Every time a visitor goes through the marketer’s site to the advertising company and makes a sale or submits certain information, the marketer receives a set fee or percentage of the sale. Incentive methods and the exact service they reward vary by company. 

There is a great deal of profit to be made by successful affiliate marketing. As in any commission based sales, the better a salesman’s marketing skills, the more successful he will be. Many marketers work with a slew of companies and run many sites bringing in a collection of smaller revenue streams, while others run larger sites that bring in a single or a few larger income streams from particularly lucrative fields. Regardless of an individual webmaster’s strategy; knowledge, skill and patience combine to make affiliate marketing successful and lucrative. 

The Affiliate Marketing Process 

The process of affiliate marketing is simple at the topmost level. A company wishes to capture a larger market share and increase publicity. That company begins an affiliate program in hopes of snagging successful marketers who will bring in new visitors. The company makes the offer attractive financially to ensure this. 

A webmaster finds the new affiliate program and signs up with the company. He can do this directly with a producer or through a third party website which organizes advertisers and publishers, or affiliates. The most popular of these sites include CommissionJunction.com or Clickbank.com. Once signed up and approved, the affiliate is able to use banners and ads prepared by the company ahead of time on his sites. 

In some cases, after sign-up and approval, the webmaster is an agent of the company and can create and run a site exclusively dedicated to the offering. For example, affiliates of DIRECTV create a website based on a template offered by the company. These sites then compete directly with the main website of DIRECTV as well as find other traffic sources. 

For some advertising companies, a website must already be existing and relatively successful for the webmaster to be approved as a new affiliate. This is to protect the reputation and interests of the company. Most companies well respected in an industry prefer to work with well developed sites that have shown success with visitors and strategies in the past. They don’t want to be affiliated with sites lacking polish or developed for reasons other than return visits from quality traffic. 

The webmaster then develops a new site devoted to the advertising company or places the logos and banners on his site. Once the advertisements are in place, he begins marketing. 

There are many ways to promote a website. Effective promotion of a website ensures that the site is located easily and visitors search through the site and click on a particular advertisement. Once the visitor clicks on an advertisement, he is taken to the advertising company’s website where he is invited to make a purchase or register for a service. 

If the visitor registers or makes a purchase, the affiliate is credited with the sale. This is made possible through coding on each of the advertisements made available through the webmaster’s site. Each ad is coded with the account of the webmaster, so the advertising company is able to keep track of where each sale originated and credit them appropriately. 

When the publisher of the ads, or webmaster, has completed enough sales or sign-ups, he will be paid. Most affiliate companies have a minimum threshold for payment and pay on a net 10 or net 20. This simply means they pay ten or twenty days following the end of the promoting or payment period – usually each month. 

As the webmaster gains in skill and knowledge within his niche or industry, his website should continue to grow in popularity. At the very least, it should maintain a steady traffic source. If all aspects of effective marketing are in place, once the publisher finds success, he should continue to have success with the advertising company. It is then time to maintain and grow the site in question and move on to the next affiliate program and revenue stream. 

Successful affiliate marketing is based on the same principles of any online revenue stream – finding and maintaining quality traffic. 

Affiliate Strategies 

There are almost endless ways to attract visitors to a website. The methods used for affiliate marketing are no different than those used for other purposes online. Most successful webmasters use a combination of methods to ensure they are reaching as many potential visitors as possible. 

Affiliate marketing strategies include: 
Organic Search Engine Optimization 

Websites that are naturally optimized for the search engines using keywords and other SEO techniques are considered organically optimized. These sites rank highly in the search engines for certain terms and when visited have relevant content accompanied by related advertisements. 

Websites ranked highly in the search engines for highly sought terms have little or no problems generating traffic flow. Of course, obtaining the high ranking is no simple task. Once ranked for appropriate keywords, visitors will come to the site, and the focus of the webmaster is providing adequate material to engage the visitor and encourage them to stay. The longer a visitor stays and the more pages he views, the more likely he is to find an advertisement that is appealing. Once he clicks on the ad, the webmaster’s job is complete. 

Paid Search Advertising 

Other webmasters shy away from SEO or are still working on becoming highly ranked. Instead, these individuals promote their websites via paid searching. The sites containing affiliate links may be marketed through paid advertisements on other websites, such as Google Adsense and Adwords. 

The webmaster might also bid for keywords in Pay-Per-Click search engines. In this advertising model, higher bids result in higher placement within results for certain keywords. The webmaster is charged his bid price when a searcher clicks on his link. Once the visitor is taken to the website, the affiliate webmaster must again make his site engaging enough to keep the visitor long enough to find an effective advertisement. 

Social Media and RSS Feeds 

One of the newer methods of promotion is through social media such as videos and podcasts and blogs. Feeds from blogs and constantly updating media including videos and photo streams can be picked up by other sites or subscribed to by interested parties. Promotion though social media involves connections with other sites and networks of related topics. If your site is engaging and mentioned on other sites in the same niche, visitors may travel from one to the other on virtual word of mouth. 

Niche Sites 

Niche marketing is not new, but it is still highly effective. Niche sites target very small portions of the population searching for very specific keywords or topics. This makes them simple to optimize, although the visitors will be far less than those drawn by major keywords. 

A single niche site can bring in a steady amount of affiliate revenue, but only a few niche sites make large amounts. Instead most webmasters interested in niche advertising create websites in multiple niches, sometimes even hundreds or thousands of sites. The small revenue streams from these successful niche sites add up to a large sum. 

Direct Marketing 

A final method, although certainly not the last one available, is direct marketing. Affiliate marketing was very loosely regulated for years which resulted in techniques such as spamming and pop-ups. Now advertising companies and coordinating websites such as CommissionJunction.com have banned spam and adware, another form of unethical direct advertising. 

While some still spam, despite the legalities and possible penalties, most elect to use more appropriate direct marketing campaigns such as distribution lists, newsletters and ezines. Webmasters can put their affiliate links directly into the email or newsletter, or can place an ad or buy a spot for his link in the marketing of others. 

Getting Started in Affiliate Marketing 

If you’re ready to get started in affiliate marketing, the best course of action is to start your research. Visit prominent affiliate companies such as CommissionJunction.com, Performics.com or Clickbank.com to see available ads and affiliate advertising information. Many merchants also have affiliate information directly on their websites. 

See what partnerships and advertisers are available that suit your own interests and talents. Use the ads and companies available for inspiration. Like finance? Find financial products and services. Build a financial website, in a niche or more generically, and then apply as an affiliate. Once you are approved, begin marketing in earnest. 

Expect a learning curve as you find the most applicable traffic sources for your website and customize content to reflect your reader’s interests. Eventually, you will find success. Then, you will join the thousands of other affiliate marketers who are able to supplement or earn a complete income pointing visitors in the right retail direction.