What is Affiliate Marketing and How Does it Work?

In simpler words, affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a certain commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. It can be done using traditional or modern methods of marketing. Though traditional methods are still practiced in some parts of the world in certain niches, affiliate marketing is done more through see platforms in today’s era, mostly through a website.

Affiliate Marketing in the Modern World

In general, the affiliate (or advertiser or publisher) chooses to market the product they have knowledge about or are interested in. They promote the product and earn a certain profit from each sale. In modern times, the sales are generally tracked via affiliate links from one website to another.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Affiliate marketing works by spreading the responsibilities of product marketing and creation across different parties. The products are marketed using different marketing techniques and abilities of the number of individuals for a more effective marketing strategy, thereby providing the affiliate with a share of the profit.

In short, affiliate marketing is based on a revenue-sharing model wherein companies can easily expand their market and customer base, without taking any risk. Affiliate marketers get customers for the company whom the company would have never reached to!

To make affiliate marketing work, four different parties must be involved, namely:

Merchant (retailer/brand)

Merchant is an individual/company that has a product to market. The product can either be a physical object or a service (e.g. tutorials, software tools, etc.). In the process of affiliate marketing, the seller does not need to be actively involved in marketing but share revenue with affiliate marketer for every sale.

Network

It is generally a website that contains offers for the marketer to choose from. The network also manages payments.

Affiliate (marketer or publisher)

Affiliate is an individual/company that markets the seller’s product(s) to potential consumers. The affiliate promotes the product(s) and convinces the potential customers to purchase the product. The affiliate receives a portion of the revenue if the consumer buys the product.

Customer/Consumer

As the name suggests, customers/consumers are the people who buy the product(s) that are promoted by affiliates using social media, blogs, websites, e-mail marketing or any other method. The affiliate may choose to disclose that they are receiving a commission for the sales they make.

Who is Affiliate and What’s Their Job?

Affiliate or marketer or publisher is the middleman connecting the customer to the product or service. They create the marketing funnel that includes the ads, landing pages, and additional means necessary to persuade the customer into purchasing or signing up for product/service.

The job of an affiliate marketer is to:

• 1. Find products to promote (Offers)
• 2. Find potential customers (Traffic Sources)
• 3. Create marketing strategy and material (Ads, Landing Pages, etc.)
• 4. Optimize (Test parts of the campaign) until profitable

How Do Affiliate Marketers Get Paid?

It’s one of the most common and frequently asked questions – how does an affiliate marketer get paid? The answer may depend upon the type of offer, which means the marketer may get paid in various ways. These include, but may not be limited to:

Per Sale

This is the most common structure that is practiced. In this, the merchant pays the affiliate a certain percentage of the sale price of the product once the sale is deemed completed.

Per Lead

This is different than above and is slightly more complex. This program compensates the affiliate on the basis of conversion of leads where the consumer must complete the desired action — be it filling out a contact form, signing up for a trial of a product, subscribing to a newsletter, or downloading certain software or files.

Per Click

This requires the affiliate to redirect consumers from affiliate’s marketing platform to the merchant’s website. The affiliate is paid on the basis of an increase in web traffic.

Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer?

Here are some of the top reasons to become an affiliate marketer.

Passive Income

While a regular job requires to be at work to make money, affiliate marketers can make money while they sleep. Affiliate marketers’ skills earn them a steady flow of income despite being away from work for a good time!

No Customer Support

Whatever be the kind of product or service, affiliate marketers do not need to provide after-sales support to the customers. The customer support is taken care of by the company/vendor/retailer/merchant.

Work from Home

Affiliate marketing is surely for people who hate going to the office, for they can create and launch campaigns at the comfort of their home. In short, this is a job one can while wearing pyjamas.

Cost Effective

One can start affiliate marketing quickly and without much hassle. There are no affiliate program fees and line of work is relatively straightforward.

Though there is a lot to affiliate marketing, one can learn much more when into it. Hope the information proves to be helpful!

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