|
Affiliate
Marketing Articles home :: What Is Affiliate Marketing?
What Is Affiliate Marketing? - Paul Colligan
Affiliate marketing is a new twist on an old concept – commission-based
sales. At its simplest, it is a partnership between a merchant and a
salesperson where the merchant rewards the salesperson, or affiliate, based
on some measure of performance – usually a sale, but in some cases for leads
or website traffic.
The first mainstream affiliate marketing system on the internet was launched
by Amazon.com, offering Amazon "associates" the opportunity to receive a
commission for each book they sold for the company. Since then, many
thousands of companies have created their own affiliate programs,
encouraging online publishers and salespeople to earn commissions through
their partnerships.
There are many publishing and sales professionals who are successful
affiliate marketers, but they are certainly not the only people
participating in the industry. There are also many "amateur" affiliates –
people who build a website, or create an online newsletter, or in some cases
simply email their friends and recommend a product or service. In many
instances, it's no different to recommending a particular brand or store –
except that if somebody follows the affiliate's advice, they're rewarded for
it.
Affiliate marketing may involve a number of different strategies and
techniques, from building entire online storefronts offering the affiliate
merchant's products, adding some form of advertisement to an existing
website, to something as simple as making recommendations in an email and
including a special affiliate link that ensures that the merchant credits
them for the sale.
The growth of affiliate marketing is constantly increasing, as new merchants
discover the value of increasing the size of their sales force by creating
partnerships with online publishers. This is especially true of merchants
whose products or services may appeal to a particular niche market. How
better to become established within that niche than by working with
companies and individuals who already know the market because they're part
of it?
About The Author
Paul Colligan, the Affiliate Guy, can be found online at
http://www.theaffiliateguy.com.
His affiliate marketing megasite at
http://www.affiliatemarketingworld.com is a popular destination to many.
paul@theaffiliateguy.com
|
Special Offers
 Learn
how to Skyrocket your Affiliate Commissions! Get Your FREE Affiliate
Marketing Primer with hundreds of "killer" affiliate marketing tips that
will take your new or existing Affiliate Marketing Promotion(s) to the next
level of success! A $97 value...Yours FREE!
Get it here!
|
