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What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Author: Alyice Edrich
Affiliate marketing is the process in which you promote the product, or service, of a business for a set percentage of the sale (otherwise known as a commission).
Affiliate marketing is an advertising program designed to pay for advertising spots based on actual sales instead of paying for advertisements based on placement, cost per impressions, cost per leads, or cost per clicks. Affiliate advertising works best on websites, but can also be used in html based e-newsletters.
The premise of an affiliate program is simple. A sole proprietorship, or small business owner, signs up with an advertising network, picks programs that compliment the theme of his/her online business, reads the program's terms and conditions, applies to become an affiliate, then waits for approval from the program manager.
Once accepted, the small business owner goes back into the advertising network, locates the affiliate code, and places that code on his/her website and in his/her e-newsletters. When visitors to the website, or readers to the e-newsletter, click on the specially coded link and purchase the recommended product or service, the small business owner receives a commission from that sale.
The commission varies from program to program, but the small business owner can receive anywhere from 1% to 99% of each sale or a set figure such as $20 per product.
Anyone can make money online with affiliate programs, but it isn’t a “get rich quick” business... and anyone making that promise is setting you up for failure.
In order for affiliate marketers to make money using affiliate programs, they need to build quality websites that attract a following, they need to be trustworthy, and they need to run their affiliate websites like any other business.
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing allows you to sell other people's stuff online by referring customers to businesses that not only fill all orders, but handle all customer-relation issues. Then once a month, you receive a commission check for any sales that were made through your website.
Read more on affiliate marketing
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