Affiliate Programs

Basic Idea

Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing in which revenue sharing between online merchants and online salespeople (affiliates), whereby compensation is based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales (Pay Per Sale), clicks (Pay Per Click) and impressions (Pay Per Impressions).

Merchants run affiliate programs to generate leads and sales from other Web sites. They pay an affiliate to generate sales from a button, banner, or link placed on affiliate's website, newsletter, e-mail or pay per click ad. For example, if a site owner signs up for any merchant's affiliate program, he will receive banners or links from this merchant that he can place anywhere on his site. Then, if a visitor clicks on this banner or a link on his site and buys something, he will receive a commission.

The introduction of affiliate programs in the late 1990s brought Internet marketing to a new level. The first companies that offered these programs saw sales increase dramatically. These companies basically get free advertising and only pay their affiliates a percentage of the sales they generate. It's a win-win situation for the company that runs the affiliate program.

Now there are thousands of companies in hundreds of industries that will pay commissions to you for sales, leads or impressions.

How does it work?

1. First of all you are looking for products and services sold online and used an affiliate program.

2. Then you should sign up for free as a reseller (affiliate). How to become an affiliate you can find below.

3. After that you should advertise these products and services. How to promote them you can find below.

4. After all you'll receive commission checks.

How to become an affiliate?

There are two ways to become an affiliate:

1. Some merchants have their own affiliate programs. You can join them on their sites.

2. But the most typical is to use Affiliate Program Providers (APPs). There are several large APPs. They connect a lot of merchants and affiliates in different industries. APPs collect payments from merchants and consolidate affiliate reporting and payments. For example, the affiliate places links to the merchant on their website, email, newsletter, or Pay per Click ads. When a potential customer clicks through the link they are sent to a specified page of the merchant's site. If this potential customer buys something, fills out a form, or completes any action desired by the merchant the affiliate is gotten a commission. The APP tracks all elements of the transaction. Joining an APP is absolutely free. You should only fill out a form. The affiliate should usually wait a few days for approval, sometimes applying is automatic. You can find the Top APPs at www.RichTrack.com.

Advantages

Affiliate Programs are the ideal way to get money quickly and easily online:

You don't need to launch a new product;
You don't need to handle any products; v You don't need physical inventory;
You don't need a huge investment. You can start with $10 and 2 hours a week;
You don't need a website because you can use Pay per Click ads.

Disadvantages

The very important disadvantage is a low click-through to conversion rate. Only a few percent of your visitors will click on a banner or link; of that percentage, a few percent will actually buy something. It can be disheartening to see that there have been thousands of visits to your site, and only small percent of them have bought something you promote. Recommendation: If you focus on the affiliate programs to the theme of your site and the interests of your audience then the better the results you will achieve. Also text links, "odd" ads (i.e. advertising that doesn't immediately look like advertising) will generally give rise to much better results than banners or buttons.

You should be reliant on a merchant's ability to sell to the visitors the products that you're promoting. Of course you can improve the chance of a sale by effectively pre-selling the product or service, but it's still up to the merchant to close a sale. And if they don't sell anything to your visitors, you get nothing. Recommendation: Before promoting any product you should learn it and decide for yourself: "Would I buy it?" If the answer is "Yes" that's greate, but if "No" you should look for better productsto promote.

You can find books to read first and AdWords helping tools at www.RichTrack.com.

Written by Helen Peshkova, RichTrack.com.

http://www.RichTrack.com is one of the first business oriented education portals. It's the leading online business information network for millionaires. The goal of RichTrack.com is to present business content in a professional, helpful and practical format that helps you getting rich.