What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is a niche market in the world of e-commerce,
a niche market worth a few million dollars. It became a predominant
aspect of e-commerce after the success of Amazon’s Affiliate Marketing
Program in 1994. The Amazon Affiliate Program brought to light the ease
and efficacy of an affiliate program for a business’ advertising.
Affiliate Marketing
began with the simple idea of using a secondary site to advertise a
primary one. This principle is not exclusive to e-commerce but it has
proved significantly more successful within the online context than the
print one.
The Form Affiliate Marketing Takes
Affiliate marketing is a highly recognizable form of Marketing
for the online user nowadays, though it is not always known by that
name. Affiliate Marketing most often takes the form of banners, pop-up
pages, or external links. These forms are the most easily recognisable
and popular. They are eye-catching and demand attention from the
customer. There are various other formats of Affiliate Marketing which
may be less intrusive such as blog posts, reviews of a service and email
notifications. The major downside to Affiliate Marketing is the
irritation factor. Many customers of the affiliate may get frustrated,
angry or even refuse the use an affiliates services anymore if the
marketing format is too aggressive or intrusive.
Who’s Who
Affiliate Marketing has four individuals that function in relation to
one another. The first is the Merchant, a merchant is a company that
seeks advertising through the means of an affiliate. This they are the
party that is being advertised. The Affiliate is the party that will be
doing the advertising. This party can be a secondary business or a
competitor or often simply an individual with a publicly visited blog
site or social network profile. The third party is the Affiliate Network
Program. This network is the middle-man between the Affiliate and the
Merchant. The Network is responsible for linking up Merchant’s with
compatible Affiliates and ensuring that Affiliates are paid by
Merchants. The final component is the customer, a self-explanatory
participant.
How Affiliate Marketing Works?
The system imposed by most Networks is that an Affiliate is paid per the
amount of clicks or purchases made by a customer on a Merchant’s site,
which have been diverted from said Affiliate. This system is usually
dictated on a per-click basis. Affiliate Marketing also employs the use
of Cookies
to tally the number of clicks each Affiliate receives. This system is
both beneficial and at times erratic. The best part of Cookies is that
they are unobtrusive for the customer, this ensures that while a
customer’s movements are recorded they are not invasive. The negative
sides of the Cookie system are dependent on how frequently customers
check or clean out their Cookies, thus effectively zeroing their tally
for a specific Affiliate.
Affiliate Networks
Affiliate Networks function to make the lives of the Merchant and
Affiliate easier, they ensure that both receive their dues. The Network
is also responsible for the monitoring of the advertising on the
Affiliate’s page. This ensures that if the advertising is not
appropriate for the Merchant it can be corrected. There are hundreds of
different Networks online. Some of the best are: Rakuten Linkshare,
Commission Junction, ShareASale, Amazon and Facebook. These are trusted
affiliate marketing networks.
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