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FEATURED ARTICLE ON AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
by 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.
He affiliate marketing megasite at http://www.affiliatemarketingworld.com
is a popular destination to many.
paul@theaffiliateguy.com |
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