Google

What Is Affiliate Marketing?


Affiliate marketing refers to the promotion of products or services through affiliates. Affiliates are usually other webmasters and ezine editors who choose to act as sales people on behalf of their principals for a commission on every sale.

There are mainly two types of affiliate marketing programs: the one-tier program and the two-tier programs. In one-tier programs the affiliate earns on a per referral basis and cannot recruit sub-affiliates to assist. In two tier programs not only the affiliate earns from his/her direct referrals but also gets a percentage commission from referrals by co-affiliates who join the program through him/her. It is also possible to have multi-tier affiliate programs but these are not yet prevalent.

If you are an online entrepreneur or marketer and you have your own website then you can also promote your business and increase your sales through affiliate marketing. You will need an attractive and genuine product plus credible sales copy plus the appropriate software to set up an affiliate marketing program. Set out the program's terms and conditions,frequently asked questions and online registration form and post them on your site and let prospects read and be able to join if they are satisfied with your affiliate program.

Apart from providing details about your affiliate marketing program on your website you need to send out the word out there that you have a lucrative and working program. Of course you could advertise in ezines or through ezine ad networks and high traffic websites. You will also need to register your program with affiliate program directories and networks such as www.associateprograms.com and www.comissionjunction.com so that prospects searching for new opportunities can find yours. You could also write reviews and articles and post them in free articles databases and request editors to publish them in your ezine.

If you have no products of your own and no website but want to earn money marketing affiliate programs you can set yourself up and succeed as an affiliate marketing. You would have to learn the ropes of online marketing and invest time, money and efforts to earn legitimate income from promoting other people's products.

You can look for a product(s) in high demand, register as an affiliate and start promoting the products using various marketing strategies. How do you know what is in high demand and what can be a successful product to market could be found mainly through considered research. It is generally accepted that information products such as ebooks, special reports, etc sell well on the internet. To discover what particular infoproducts are suitable for you, conduct some research at online marketing forums such as www.warriorforum.com and www.ablake.com. You can read existing messages already posted there and ask questions to find out more. You can also search at affiliate program network sites such as www.commissionjunction.com, www.associateprograms.com, www.clicbank.com and www.google.com.

To assist you select the most appropriate affiliate program here are further tips:

The product must be genuine and legal so that you do not encounter legal problems.

The minimum payout should not be too high to make you wait for too long for the paycheck or to struggle too much to send referrals.

The product should not be too new as to make prospects tarry in making the buying decision or too old that almost everyone has bought it.

The price should not be too high as to make people unable to afford thus making you not get any or very few referrals or the product is too cheap that your commission is too little such that you would have to make many referrals to earn a decent income.

Does the affiliate program have one -tier or several tiers? The more tiers the program has and ability to earn residual income the better.

Do you have to pay or purchase anything to join the program? Purchasing may be fine for you to know the product but paying to join isn't.

Ideally you should have your own website where you would post reviews and links to your affiliate programs. Use your own domain name when setting up the website to look professional. Since many of the visitors to your website will be there for a few seconds and may never return again, it is advisable that you capture their names and addresses so that you can further enlighten them on your programs and offers. This could be mainly through a regular ezine or an automated autoresponder ecourse.

Provide a means for prospects to contact you in case of any queries and reply promptly and courteously. Promote your website constantly and track your affiliate statistics regularly to gauge your performance. Ensure your links and banners are working and your affiliate ID is correct in all your links. Use text links more than banners as the latter are less effective nowadays due to their proliferation and distractive nature.

About The Author

Dhiraj Bhikoo is a successful internet marketer.He helps people retire faster by building a free search engine friendly website for top search engine rankings

http://www.workathomeopportunityformoms.com

You are free to use this article as long as you do not make any changes in its content, you keep all the links in it active and you include the information above about the author as it is.

info@workathomeopportunityformoms.com

MORE RESOURCES:

RELATED ARTICLES

Make 100% Commission on Your Affiliate Sales!
If you've been involved in making money on the internet, you will no doubt have tried affiliate marketing at some point. For the uninitiated, affiliate marketing is the process of selling another person's product for a percentage of the product cost.
Affiliate Program As It Should Be
Every off- or online business has a target of growing its market share. Under all other equal conditions the percent of the market, occupied by a company, means certain level of recognition, brand, exposure and, therefore, sales and income.
JV and Grow Rich
To illustrate the concept of arranging simple joint ventures that can lead to exciting new business opportunites, I am including a short story and correspondence that led me down a grand path to a very successful deal that involves one of the most successful personal and financial achievement books ever written, not to mention partnering with a living legend.To start things off, in early July of 2002 I read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill for the first time in my 36 years of existance on this spinning orb of madness.
Design Web Site Around Affiliate Programs
When starting a Web business, most people choose a topic for their Web site and then look for products and affiliate programs related to that topic. In this article, I suggest searching for a group of related affiliate programs first, then designing your Web site around those programs.
How To Build Website - Seven Steps For Building Optimized Websites For Affiliate Programs
The web has developed in such a mass marketing arena, that many offline advertisers are now coming online. This is the first sign that selling online will be a trillion dollar media in a couple years.
Affiliate Program Basics
Affiliate Program is a ground floor opportunity. All you have to do is send visitors to your affiliate web site by placing a textlink or banner on your website and receive a commission on each sale, without the complication and expense of selling anything yourself.
5 Ways to Promote Affiliate Programs
After having chosen several programs to join, you probably realize that customers won't knock on your door - you have to come to them. By promoting your affiliate programs successfully, you build your own success!So what should you do to promote your affiliate programs? Here are five methods which have succeeded for millions and can succeed for you, if you choose to follow the same steps as those millions before you!#1 Create your own marketing affiliate program materials.
Where Affiliate Programs Fail and How It Can Impact Your Success
Recruiting people for your business opportunity or paid program by promoting a referral link is an obsolete concept. The idea of making money through affiliate programs is brilliant and is possible, if done correctly.
Generate More Sales in ANY Affiliate Program - Part Three
Thinking Outside the square is where we last left off. So to carry on from this topic let me introduce you to M.
Six Power Tips on Resell Rights
If you are planning to take the path of the reseller in your Internet Business undertakings, you will do well to use these power tips I have laid out for you. I hope you will find them useful as they have been for me.
Affiliate Business : Ten Checklists for Your Success
While it can be quite easy to start an online business, not all people make a success. How then successful business man/woman could make it? Every successful business has its own story, however, there are some common factors that make a business hard to fell down.
The Google Adsense-Adwords Automatic Money Machine
Have you ever tried to make money through affiliate programs using Google Adwords? Then you know it's not easy. Some say that only 2-3 out of 10 affiliate Adwords campaigns will actually make a profit.
Understanding Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs are commonly misunderstood, in order to understand affiliate programs lets start with terminology. For clarification purposes, an affiliate is defined as any "referrer" or website that promotes a product in an effort to earn revenue.
Why Top-earning Affiliates Have Their Own Domains And Websites
Many affiliate programs usually provide special web pages for their affiliates. This is one of the reasons why it may appear very strange, at first, that most top affiliates and the high earners from affiliate programs will most certainly always have their own websites, complete with their own domains specifically for promoting a certain affiliate program that they are involved in.
Five Things to Look For to Join Any Affiliate Program!
Here's a really simple way..
Setting Up Your Own Affiliate Program (part one)
Can you start your own affiliate program without hassle?This is one of a two part series on creating your own affiliate/revenue sharing program.Joining an affiliate program is a neat way to make money from your users.
How Affiliates Can Have Their Own Radio Show...
Before we start, I want to ask you one simple question. If you knew what you know today about how big blogging would be before it started, would you have started a blog? Well, in that case, you better pay close attention to podcasting!Pretty much everyone and anyone who knows the slightest bit about Podcasting thinks about the Apple I-Pod and how I-Pod users are using Apple's I-Tunes software to download their favorite songs over the internet.
How To Boost Your Affiliate Sales With Free Articles
Free Articles continue to be one of the most effectiveways of quickly generating traffic and sales, withoutpaying for advertising.But how can you use free articles to promote anaffiliate link? Putting your affiliate link in yourResource Box is not going to work, for a number ofreasons:- people can easily remove your affiliate IDand just visit the main website of the affiliateprogram (you get no commission)- an affiliate link makes you look like just anotherbeginner, instead of an expert with somethingunique to offerSo how do you use articles to promote affiliateproducts? Here are some strategies:(1) Turn your website into a 'Marketing ResourcesDirectory'On your website display book covers and provide briefreviews for a range of eBooks or software that dealwith web marketing.
Your Affiliate Business and Taxes
Starting a home-based business on the Internet is easy you say. You have your web page built, your affiliate links and you're ready to go.
3 Tips To Succeed With Affiliate Programs
Dear friends, when it comes to promoting affiliate programs we all follow a certain defined process. We first go to google.