Affiliate Marketing Defined

The Internet allows a merchant who sells products or services to reach many more people than their brick and mortar store. Affiliate marketing is a cooperative effort between a merchant and an affiliate. Working with an affiliate, a merchant can reach many more people in niche markets. It would consume a lot of time if a merchant had to research the Internet to find web sites suitable for their products or services.

In simple terms, affiliate marketing is a cooperative effort between a merchant (someone who sells products) and an affiliate (someone who has a website or a blog). The merchant wants to sell as much of their product as they can. The affiliate wants to earn money. An affiliate, just as a merchant, can promote products or services offline as well.

The affiliate has an interest in a particular area or topic and wants to earn money. The affiliate feels that the visitors to their web site will be interested in the benefits of the merchant's product or service. The affiliate promotes the product on their website via banners, text ads, audio ads, or video ads. Most affiliate marketers promote more than one product or service on their web sites.

An affiliate is compensated for every visitor, subscriber, and/or customer provided through their efforts. The compensation is generally based on a certain value for each visit. From the merchant's viewpoint, this is a good partnership because no payment is due to an affiliate until they produce results.

Affiliate marketing is typically run by affiliate networks. The network is made up of the affiliates and the merchants. The affiliate network acts as a third party between the merchant and the affiliates. The network provides the technology to deliver the merchant's campaigns and offers. The affiliate network also collects commission fees from the merchant and then pays the affiliates who are part of the program. The merchant decides how much they will pay in commission. Merchants also provide personal support their affiliates.

Although affiliate marketing can generate a full-time income, the affiliate has to treat it as a business. They must be aware of the products their web site visitors will be interested in and only promote those products to assure their visitors will return to their web site.

The business side of affiliate marketing is also an understanding of how the affiliate will generate income. They have to know what their commission will be, how it will be paid, and when it will be paid.

Affiliate marketing is a business you can start and work at home. It does require that you make a small investment in a website and website hosting. The start-up costs are generally less than for other types of businesses.

Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich quick scheme. You have to treat it as a business and you have to work at it. You should create a business plan and a marketing plan. It is possible to turn this into a full-time business.