What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a marketing method adopted by online merchants in which they reward those who help them promote their products and services.These people who help the merchants to promote their products are called Affiliates. Affiliates are paid a share of the revenue generated by them from completing certain tasks as agreed with the merchants like making a sale,generating leads, sending visitors to the merchant websites or a combination of all.

For those who wants to make money online, affiliate marketing is the best way for  that.You can get started without investing any money at all.You do not need to buy anything yourself.

Why They Offer Affiliate Programs?

Affiliate programs are the cheapest and best way to drive traffic to any site. Merchants get tons of traffic for free.Affiliates do all that for them.They do not need to invest lot of money in advertising their products.Only they share a portion of the total revenue generated with the affiliates.

Do I Need To Invest Anything?

You do not need to pay anything to join any affiliate program or network.But,if you’re serious about starting an affiliate marketing business then you should invest in building your affiliate website or blog,invest in good hosting,domain name,email marketing software.And in some cases you may want to advertise affiliate links on the PPC ad networks.

What Are The Types of Affiliate Programs?

To help you understand different types of affiliate programs better I’d divide them into two main types- Tier Based affiliate programs and Revenue Sharing Model Based affiliate programs.

Revenue Sharing Model

Pay Per Sale

This is the most common type of affiliate program.These type of programs offer certain amount of commission to the affiliates for every sale they generate.Pay per sale programs can of one time commission or residual commissions.

Pay Per Lead

Pay Per Lead is a kind of program where you refer a visitor to the merchant’s website to complete a certain action,such as create an account,giving email address etc.You get paid for all the actins taken by your referral.Thi9s can be very lucrative because the visitor does not need to by anything.So,if you can generate targeted traffic,there are every chance of yours’ being successful with these programs.

Pay Per Click

This type of programs are not very lucrative for the affiliates.You get paid per click the ads receive from your website.Payments can vary from few cents per click to few dollars per click.Google AdSense is the biggest brand in this kind of affiliate marketing.

Apart from these three popular revenue sharing methods there are certain other types of programs available-cost per action,pay per download or install,cost per thousand impression etc.

Tier Based

There different types of affiliate programs where revenue is given based on tier of the affiliate.

Single Tier-

Only the affiliate gets paid directly when you refer a sale or lead.Generally commission in these types of programs are very high.This is the most common way of revenue sharing.

Two Tier-

You get paid for the sale or lead you generate and also a percentage of the sale or lead generated by your sub-affiliates.

Multi Tier-

Multi tier programs run three to six level deep.You get paid certain amount of commission from the sale or lead generated by your referrals multi level deep.

Residual Commission-

Apart from these types of programs there is another type that offer residual commission.That is once you refer a sale or lead and the customer continues to use the product,you’ll get paid forever monthly commission.Generally membership sites and software charge monthly basis rather than one time fees.These are gold mines for any affiliate considering you’ll have to refer once and get paid as long as they continue using the product or service.

An affiliate program with certain revenue sharing model can offer a tier based revenue sharing.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Affiliate Marketing?

Pros:

• You can work in your spare time.You can set working hours for yourself.
• You do not need to own any products.
• You do not need to directly sell anything.all you have to do is to send potential buyers to the merchant’s website.After that merchants take care of the rest.
• You do not need to deals with the customers.In fact they are not your customers,they are actually the customers of the merchants and the merchants provide customer supports to them.
• You are free to decide which product to promote.

Cons:

• Affiliate marketing is not for everyone.If you do not know the business then you ca not be successful here.
• It is one of the most competitive business online.There are thousands of affiliate promoting same products.You’ll have to be better equipped with right kind of training and mentoring to stand the competition.
• Though it is possible to start affiliate marketing without any investment,you can not be successful without any investment.To be successful in affiliate marketing having your own professional website is a must.You need to buy domain name,hosting and email marketing software.
• You’ll have to strictly follow the terms of the merchants.If you fail to follow the terms and condition you may get suspended from the program anytime.

In spite of all those cons affiliate marketing is too lucrative a business to stay away from.If you get into this business with proper training and tools,there is no reason for you to fail.

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What Are The Programs To Join?

As we already have learned a thing or two about affiliate marketing,now the time to get started into affiliate marketing.For that we need to join few of the affiliate programs. Here are some of the best affiliate networks that really works for the newbie.

Commission Junction

CJ is probably the biggest of the affiliate networks around.They offer both physical and digital products.The have great reputation for quality of the products.Most of their products sell themselves.Some of the top brands have listed their products in the CJ marketplace.The only drawback that it has is that unlike ClickBank here you need to get approved by individual merchants to promote their products.

ClickBank

ClickBank is the marketplace for the digital products like eBook,software and more. These products are easy to sell.Usually you get commission from 25% up to 75%.There is huge hungry market for these digital products.But,you have to choose the right niche and right marketing technique.Niche like health,internet marketing converts very well.Usually you’d like to write a detailed review about the product in your blog or website or create a landing page and get the visitors to join your mailing list.

These are the best of the affiliate networks to get started in affiliate marketing.Once you find your feet in this business then you can think of joining many other affiliate programs.

What Products To Promote As An Affiliate?

In every affiliate network that you join you can find many different types of product. Networks like Commission Junction,Amazon even offers physical products.For a newbie it is advisable to join ClickBank and sell digital products only.Because digital products converts well and gets you better commission,sometimes up to 75%.Which is huge.

You can also find some programs that does not require you to generate any sell.All you have to do is to generate lead,that is to get the visitors submit their contact information like,email,zip,mobile number or take any other action like registering with a site.You get paid for all these actions.These programs converts well and can make you good easy income.

Also you should decide a niche in which you want to promote your products.Your niche can be anything depending on your interest like weight loss, Forex, dating, internet marketing and more.It has to be something that you’re passionate about.It’s not advisable for any newbie to dabble in many niche in the initial stage of affiliate marketing.Once you’re successful in your main niche then you can try out other niche as well.Top experienced affiliates can get equally good results in any niche.

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How To Promote/Sell Products As An Affiliate?

Promoting affiliate products can be done in many ways.Some of the ways are even free ways.

• Banner Ads:Create a blog or create a websiteand place affiliate Banners and other Creatives there.
• Product Reviews:Write product reviews in your blog or website.Products reviews are great way to get buyers.How To Write a Product Review.
• Build a List:Start an email marketing campaign.They say that money is in the list.Learn how to build a list.
• Paid Advertising:Advertise on Pay Per Click search engines like Google AdWords,Bing,Yahoo and more.You can also advertise on Facebook.
• Article Marketing:This is one of the free ways to promote affiliate products. Write articles related to your niche,include a link to your affiliate product and post those to article directories for free.Read Beginners guide to article marketing.
• Forum Marketing:Join popular forums and include a link to your affiliate product in your forum  signature.How To Do Forum Marketing.
• Classified Ads:There are hundreds of classified sites out there where you can post free ads.

How Do I Get Paid?

Payment rates and methods vary from affiliate program to program.Generally most of the affiliate networks pay via check.There are many affiliate networks that can pay via other methods like PayPal,Wire Transfer,Direct Deposit and more.

Few Concepts Associated With Affiliate Marketing:-

Affiliate/Publisher/Reseller

Affiliate is a person who promote products and services of advertisers and get commissions for sale or lead generation.

Advertiser/Vendor

Advertiser is who owns the products and looking for affiliate to promote that for commission.

Payout

Amount of money an affiliate earns for successfully promoting the products and services.

Affiliate Network

It’s a combination of  many affiliate programs.Rather than signing up with every single one affiliate program you can promote all the affiliate programs by signing up with an affiliate networks.

Cost Per Action

Commission is paid to the publisher for every desired action taken by the visitors that they refer like buying the product,giving email Id,phone number etc.

Conversion Rate

It’s the percentage of visitor an affiliate sends to the advertisers’ website that take a desired action like buying.

Click Through Rate

It’s the percentage of clicks an ad gets compared to the number of impressions.

SEM

Search Engine Marketing is the form of marketing that involves advertising in the search engines that delivers targeted qualified traffic.

Social Media Marketing

Marketing using the power of social media sites.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization is a method of optimizing your website for better results in the search engine results so that your website brings more traffic.

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