Here is the definition of affiliate marketing and why it has grown rapidly in popularity for vendors to promote their products online.
As an affiliate marketer you will be rewarded for each sale generated through your affiliate link or in some cases subscribers to the vendors website usually known as CPA (Cost Per Action). Essentially, this is the advanced version to the finder’s fee.
No commissions are paid to the affiliate unless there is a result such as a sale, making this a great option to online marketing for the vendor. It’s now common place to see e-commerce sites running their own form of affiliate marketing software and programs.
In saying that however many other e-commerce vendors choose to use a third-party service that will track the traffic and sales created by the affiliate.
What It All Means
To understand affiliate marketing better and how it has been the vehicle of success for many companies online and offline and the increase in revenue is usually 15-20% of a vendor’s online revenue. There is also the added benefit for the vendor of having many affiliate marketers linking to their websites talking about their products and services in forums and blogs which is actually the best form of advertising they can get and it all comes to them for free.
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Affiliate marketing is usually only one level but as of late you can find some programs such as PPC Web Spy that allow different levels taking on the form of the network marketing vehicle. There are a number of affiliate marketing strategies including Two-Tier Marketing available that can be offered by online merchants.
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A number of the solutions include your own software, online shopping carts that have affiliate features, hosted services, and third-party affiliate networks such as Clickbank, Commission Junction or ShareaSale . As the concept grows, many merchants opt to refine their terms and conditions to prohibit the affiliates from spamming or cookie stuffing and numerous other “Black Hat Marketing” practices.
What It’s Not!
In the past email would be used to spam potential customers by affiliates in an effort to generate more sales and leads. This not only annoyed potential consumers, but it filled the Internet with computer-generated mail, which not only got the attention of the search engines but also damaged product reputations.
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Many affiliates then got the idea to create large volumes of auto-generated web pages that are devoted to keywords and keyword phrases to target a specific product this was actually marketed by someone claiming to be an affiliate marketing guru. This permitted the search engines to index their sites for the very keywords and products they were selling.
After a number of months and many thousands of generated websites later this also started to fill the internet with what is called “junk sites” and was later known as “Black Hat” tactics however…
Google came to the rescue to remove these spam websites and created an algorithm called “Big Daddy” during February 2006 (and again in 2011 with Panda). This update allowed Google to remove a large quantity of duplicated content from the master search index and put them into what is known as the Supplemental Index.
This also means that now an affiliate marketer has to rotate and update content on a regular basis and to stay away as best they can from duplicate content to maintain a strong presence in the SERP’s.
So to understand the affiliate marketing definition the concept is responsible for creating a lot of new businesses across the globe and is expected to evolve greatly. It offers an affiliate the opportunity to hitch on to a company that is already well established in the market, and it becomes a win-win situation for every person involved.
It’s Easy To Understand And Follow Right?
As with any business venture it needs to be taken seriously, so as an affiliate you have a ready-made business that can return you many thousands of dollars with the right ideas,attitude and affiliate marketing strategies.
While the merchant can offer training in the way of articles, emails, banners and even YouTube video promotions as well as some advice, promoting the website and getting the required traffic is left up to the affiliate, and this means understanding the rules of the product promotion.
Hopefully this has given you some insight and understanding on the Affiliate Marketing Definition.
Excellent post!
Simple, clear and easy to find!
Those are the exact Affiliate Marketing Definitions I was looking for to take my first step in affiliate marketing.
I’m writing a blog about how Small Business can boost revenue using Business Intelligence, online marketing and other techniques already used by big corporations.
An affiliate program seems to be a good way to help my readers to find products and services that will make them to grow even more.
Thank you very much,
Claudiomar Cunha
Awesome, awesome post. I have been looking for non-biased info on affiliate programs, how they work, etc. I am glad I came to your site, and will definitely be poking around for a while. You have given me some easy to understand info, and a couple affiliate netowrks to look into, so I thank you.
Hi John…
Thanks for your support… This is one of the areas that nearly turned me away from affiliate marketing when i first started everyone was talking about it but nothing was posted that i could really understand or even comprehend at first so that is why I added this post to help those who are just starting out as an affiliate.
I have always struggled to understand Affiliate Marketing and read much on it and still been in the dark, but I really like to blog, I think its finally sinking in!
Hi Carla and Welcome to our site…
Yes it is a very good idea to do some research and learn as much as you can before starting out on your affiliate marketing career.
One thing you can not afford to do in the early stages of your marketing is make mistakes like emailing your subscribers to much and with useless information this in effect will build mistrust between you and you potential customers making it much harder for you to make any money….
This is just one of many scenarios that you need o try and avoid, and trust me over the last nine years I have not only seen many but have also been guilty of some of these mistakes myself.
Affiliate marketing is an easy way to earn money. As far as I’ve read in your article I conclude that there are lots of things I wanna know and lots of things also to be considered.
I learned so many things on it and finally clear up my mind regarding questions on my mind. Thank you so much for it.
The first thing you want to disregard in affiliate marketing is that it is an easy way to earn money, yes some get lucky and make money very fast but the other 99.5% fail at their first attempt.
You need to work hard at it, have motivation and dedication to actually see results in affiliate marketing.. Learning is an on going process as so many things change very fast on the internet you need to always be aware of these changes to stay on top.
I thought it was a good way for me to start money but when I actually got started I found that it just wasn’t working for me. I was making a few quid every week but nowhere near enough for me to quit my job. I guess I was naive in thinking that all those articles about people making hundreds of pounds a week were true.
Hi Jade and Welcome…
Yes Jade you are right about many of the articles you have probably read about people making it big time online. The sad truth of it is that only about 1% make it and they are the ones that forget about the hype and B.S and actually offer value to their site visitors…
You need to think about it this way, what have you ever found in the real world that has made you a huge amount of cash, where you don’t have to work at it and you can go to the beach every day and just watch you bank account grow. For me, anyway I have never found anything like that and its the same on the internet. If you are not motivated to do some work you are really wasting your time, you just will not make it. (I am not saying that this is what you have done)
However if you are willing to put in the hours and select a niche that is in huge demand you can realize your dreams very quickly and easily with the right information. Even with more competitive niches you can make good money, because what I have found is that many of those jumping into those more competitive niches are also the ones that are not willing to do any work, so they are very easy to beat.
Just look at the quality of any websites that are in the top ten of the niche and see what quality if any they offer and you might find that you have an open door to make some money.
I generally don’t trust anything with a buzzword like affiliate marketing, but this is a good, boiled-down explanation.
I automatically dismiss anything that sounds too good to be true, but the fact that you emphasize that it does require hard work, just like anything else, lends this a lot of credibility. It’s a bit brief, but good.
I also like the point you bring up that despite there being a lot of competition, much of those people are expecting easy money, leaving them quite vulnerable.
I also must commend Google for creating such strong incentives for companies to stop cluttering the internet with garbage.
Welcome To Our Site…
Yes many people make affiliate marketing sound very simple, usually to sell some product or service to you. However if you were to stop and think about everything you need to achieve you would instantly understand that affiliate marketing is not something that is going to make you rich fast.
This might have been the case five or six years ago but today with so many people getting involved the market can become saturated with competitors all trying to make money from popular products or services.
Work hard and stay focused on your goals and the rewards will follow, don’t get caught up in the marketing hype and spend you hard earned money on products you simply don’t need.
Nice, informative and intuitive article, beautifully presented. The concept of Affiliate marketing never seemed so easy. Good job! Keep it up.
Affiliate Marketing for me is one those that are not easy to understand in terms of internet marketing. But thanks to this I have a clearer understanding. Maybe I need to review this and read it again so that I’ll fully understand this and maybe a little more research on the internet would be a good idea.