What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is a way to sell more products by giving partners a cut of the revenue they pass along to you.
Affiliate marketing is a strategy that uses partners as brand ambassadors. Affiliates get a cut of the revenue that they generate for others. That way, business owners get more business while affiliates have the opportunity to earn money for their work.
Affiliates find customers for others either by by word-of-mouth, or by creating content that mentions products. Affiliates use unique “affiliate links” that include an ID associated with them. In this way, businesses know which sales can be attributed to different affiliates.
Typical cost structures include getting one-time payments for a sale and/or getting a percentage of recurring revenue for the lifetime of paying customers attributed to you.
For instance, if a business sells silver necklaces online for $100, all affiliates of this business may get 5% of each sale they pass along. In this example, affiliates would earn $5 each time an affiliate is responsible for sending over a lead who ends up buying a necklace.
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Businesses using affiliate marketing generally use an affiliate network to manage affiliate relationships. People typically apply to your affiliate program and then you decide which affiliates are accepted into your program. Many affiliate networks handle paying affiliates on your behalf.
Affiliate Marketing Resources
- A newbie affiliate marketing guide
- Understanding affiliate marketing lingo
- Top 20 affiliate networks