Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing: What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is an online marketing channel in which marketers or business who offer a service or product pay publishers on a pay-for-performance basis. You're just paid for outcomes which could be a sale or a lead (user fill a form and complete registration). In Affiliate Marketing as marketers pays just for outcomes it's a great deal as they do not have to pay out large quantity of cash in Banner Advertising or Pay-Per-Click Networks like Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter or Yahoo! Browse Marketing where the results are not ensured.

Publisher or Affiliate Marketer.

A publisher is an individual or business that promotes an advertiser's product or service in exchange for making a commission. Marketers contractually consent to work with a publisher, then offer the publisher with creatives in the form of links, banner or text ads or perhaps unique phone numbers that the publisher incorporates into their website. These creatives have a uniquely coded “affiliate link” that will be used to credit the appropriate affiliate for their marketing efforts.

Advertiser or Marketer – This is the Merchant.

In a big world of affiliate marketing, an advertiser can be a business offering a product like electronics, airline tickets, clothing or automobile parts, or an advertiser might also be an insurance business offering policies or selling furniture or kitchen equipment. The most essential thing to remember is that you are a marketer if you are ready to pay other individuals to aid you offer and promote your company. Marketers prefer affiliates to market their items as they need to pay only for conversions - Clicks (Pay per Click or PPC), Leads (Pay per Lead or Action or PPL or PPA), Sales (Pay per Sale or PPS).

Three Different Types of Conversion Methods

Pay Per Sale (PPS) - In Pay per Sale programs the marketer pays you a portion of all certified sales. The most popular Pay per Sale affiliate program is Amazon Associates where you can make approximately 4% to 15 % depending upon the classification of items.

Pay Per Click (PPC) - In Pay per Click programs you get paid for all valid clicks that you generate despite leads/sales.

Pay Per Lead (PPL) - In Pay Per Lead programs the marketer pays you a commission (a repaired quantity) for a competent action which can be a brief study, totally free trial, set up, register, online type submission etc.

An ideal example of Pay per Lead programs would be dating websites which normally pays for a complimentary trial.

Affiliate Network.

An Affiliate Network such as Commission Junction, ClickBank, Google Affiliate Network and others not mentioned here, is a center which connects the Marketers and Publishers. The affiliate network have the tracking technology, reporting tools and manages the payments. Marketers might pick an Affiliate Network(s) to manage their affiliate program or might use their own internal affiliate network/platform. The procedure consists of the creation of affiliate links for publishers, tracking of sales and "conversions" made through publishers or affiliates' reference links and the payment of "affiliate commissions" to publishers.

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~Peter Mantu