Who doesn’t dream of making some quick cash in the business and that is also without making a significant investment? Well the internet provides you just the right opportunity of hitting the jackpot, only you have to be wise enough to grab the mode that suits you best.
However, affiliate marketing is the surefire way of gaining entrance in the world of internet business; it gives you a hand on experience on how things work in the arena of e-commerce.
A type of promotional tool, that was conceived in an informal party of the CEO of the eBookstore, Amazon.com, has come a long way to become a booming industry today. Everybody is making money through this online business called affiliate marketing; entrepreneurs are becoming even richer with the help of affiliate programs.
So what is unique in this online promotional activity that has turned it into the gold mine in recent years? To know you have to take a tour down the enticing world of affiliate marketing.
As the name suggests, affiliate marketing is a kind of advertising business. Like the traditional advertising, affiliate marketing also involves promotional activities, but not in the real world.
Affiliate marketing takes place in the virtual world of e-business, where the words of specific merchandise or service are spread like wildfire through the chains of links placed in the affiliate websites. The result is dramatic, but it costs far lesser than the ad campaigns carried on in the print or electronic media in the real world.
In the business of the affiliate marketing, the affiliates act as the mediator who connects the probable customers and the seller of the products and services. Affiliates have their own website and their job involves sending the customers to the product manufacturers website for the purpose of purchase or performing some action like filling out a form.
For these leads to the advertising websites, the affiliates are rewarded by the commissions which in most of the cases are considerably high.
There can be various kinds of affiliate programs. Some program pays the affiliate only when a purchase has been made from the particular referral. This is called pay-per-sale program.
Sometimes the affiliate is paid a one-time fee for making a referral to the site of the merchant, where the visitor performs some intended task like filling out a form. This is a pay-per-lead affiliate program.
There is another variety, where the affiliate is paid for every visitor redirected to the merchants’ site regardless of any sale or purchase. This is called pay-per-click affiliate program.
Then there are Two-Tier programs that allow you to recruit the sub-affiliates and as a result you earn commission from the direct sales, as well as, from the leads generated by the sub-affiliate sites.
The quality of the affiliate programs are also determined by the reliability and support that the merchant site offers the affiliates in promoting the products or services it sells.
If you are new in the affiliate brigade, our advice is: first understand every clause of the affiliate service agreement and then take the decision of joining any program. This way you will be able to minimize the risk of not getting paid and maximize your affiliate income.
