Affiliate Marketing. What is
Affiliate Marketing?
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A
popular definition of affiliate marketing is
"Affiliate
marketing
is a business relationship with a merchant or other service provider
who allows you to link to that business. When a visitor clicks on the
link at your site and subsequently makes a purchase from the merchant,
you receive a commission based on the amount of the sale, a referral
fee or a pay-for-click fee"
Quote from showtheworld.com
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So what is
affiliate marketing?
You, the
affiliate, via your
website, drive traffic to a
merchant's site.
The merchant may be
selling a
product eg DVDs or e books, or they may be trying to sign on clients eg
a bank.
The merchant pays you a
commission once the visitor has
completed
the desired action eg bought a product or completed a
registration form
The merchant knows that the visitor is from you because you link to the
merchant's site through a special
affiliate link. This link is unique to you and you alone.
Other
affiliates will have there own special affiliate link which is
different from yours.
Although different affiliate marketers for the same product have
different, unique affiliate links, all these links point to the same
website, the merchant's website.
The affiliate aims simply
to drive as much targetted traffic as possible to his/her own unique
affiliate link
The beauty
of this is, once your site is up and running, you can continue to earn
money from it whether you are in bed, on holiday or sleeping.
This is
called passive income.
It is passive because after the initial effort
of researching your chosen market, building a website and setting up
your campaign, you can continue to earn from this with very minimal day
to day input in your campaign.
Illustration of
affiliate marketing
Say,
for example,
a company manufactures Product X and that company has a website and
affiliate program. You like the look of the product and are
interested in promoting it
You
build a content rich website about some related matter, apply to the company’s affiliate
program and get an affiliate link.
The
link given to you is unique to you and contains your affiliate ID [a
number or your affiliate name]. The link allows the merchant to track
sales generated from your visitors so that you get your commission for
sales generated via that link.
You
then place
this link on your site in an appropriate place and
drive traffic to it. Every time
someone clicks on that link on your website it takes them to product
X's webpage. If the visitor buys product X,
you get a commission
Cookies Explained
It gets
better!
With some reputable affiliate programs, the person does not
actually have to buy during that click.
So say Jim landed on your
website, clicked on your affiliate link to product X on your website
He gets taken to product X's site, looks at the sales page and then goes off without purchasing.
During that click a cookie is placed on Jim's computer.
This
cookie is just a bit of code that says that the computer has viewed
product X on a specified date.
It also has a record of who referred Jim to the Product X site i.e. you
A week later, Jim remembers product X, remembers the URL of
product X's website and types it into the web browser of his computer.
He does not use your affiliate link on this occasion. He goes directly to Product X's webpage and decides that he would like
to buy it after all.
He whips out his credit card and makes the purchase
When Jim went back to Product X's webpage, the cookie left
on his desktop kicked in.
The webpage recognizes Jim as being refered
by you.
What does this mean?
You get your commission.
Cookies could be valid for as little as one day to 60 days.
There are even some cookies that are lifetime cookies.
As long as the purchase is made from the computer where the
cookie is stored, within the time limit of the cookie, and Jim hasn't encountered other marketers cookies since using yours, you get your commission.
Word of caution: Cookies
vary in their duration so read the
companies
affiliate agreement carefully to find out the life span of their
cookie. A 3 month cookie is more desirable that a one week cookie, for
example.
The buzz
word here is Content Rich
Website
What is in affiliate
marketing for you?
- You do
not need to develop your
own product. You make money promoting other peoples product.
At affiliate marketing
introduction we advice that you eventually develop your own product.
- You have
no responsibility for after sales service for the product. This is all
handled by the merchant.
- You do not deal with shipping or
storage or packaging or inventories. Yes, you guessed it right, the
merchant deals with all that too.
- You can promote one product, several
products, drop a product if you are not satisfied with it. You are not
tied in to any product.
What is in affiliate marketing for the
merchant?
What affiliate Marketing is
not
Affiliate marketing is not a
get rich
quick business.
It requires a lot of hard work and determination
As you get involved with affiliate marketing you will come across a lot
of products that claim to teach you how to make hundreds of dollars in
15 mins.
Beware of the hype!!
The reality for most of us marketers is that it takes a few months of
hard work to start making a substantial income.
So
if it
takes so much hard work and dedication, why affiliate marketing?
Financial
Freedom
Imagine for
a second if you continue in your current job [Just Over Broke] for the
next 10 years, will you earn enough to be financially free for the rest
of your life?
Now if you
find a legal business that if worked at for a few months or years
has the potential to make you financially free for the rest of your
life, would you not grasp the opportunity?
Passive Income
Let's think of our friend Jim who works a regular job.
He
goes in, does his work, goes home and gets paid at the end of the
month.
He gets paid ONCE for the job he does. He needs to go to work
again and again and again to get paid again and again and again
In affiliate marketing, you sit down, set up the website, set
up your trafic generation methods and then relax.
For as long as
traffic keeps coming to your affiliate marketing website, you stand to
make money again and again and again.
It's called passive income
Multiple Streams Of Income
And hey, Jim can only do a finite amount of work a
day. He is limited by hours and the physical ability to do the
job. He cannot do 6 full time jobs a day
In affiliate marketing, you can build 1, 2, 30 websites. All
up and making money for you
Get a free guide on how to set up an affiliate marketing business here
The best selling guide to affiliate marketing by an
affiliate marketing multimillionaire can be previewed here
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