Affiliate Marketing 101 – What is Affiliate Marketing?
27. Sep, 2009 
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What is Affiliate Marketing?
To understand what affiliate marketing is, let us first break down the two fundamental concepts that make up its name. First, Affiliates or Affiliating. To affiliate with something is to partner yourself or make a connection between yourself and someone else. In this case, we are affiliating ourselves with companies that do business on the Internet. The second half is marketing. To market something is to publicize it, or to bring it into the eye of the public. In other words, to try to present the object of the marketing to the public in a favorable light.
So when we break down the two concepts, in essence, what we are doing is affiliating ourselves with a company that does business, and trying to publicize or bring exposure to their product or service. When you are an affiliate marketer, you make money by getting others to purchase the goods or services someone else offers. This means that you will never create and actual product to sell, or offer a specific service, as the advertising you will be doing is the actual service you specialize in.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
The inner workings of affiliate marketing on the Internet are fairly simple. Many companies who do business on the world wide web do not have the time or resources to properly market their products. Due to this fact, they will outsource that marketing to people like you and I. They offer a percentage of their profits from each sale that you refer or recommend to their website.
Let’s use Amazon as an example since they have the largest affiliate network. You would build a website promoting products that are currently sold on Amazon’s website. You get web traffic to your website where you recommend products on Amazon and you include a link to the product listing on Amazon’s site with a special code. Amazon will pay you anywhere from 4% up to about 10% on all sales they make from the traffic that contains that code. The only downside is, if they do not purchase anything at Amazon, you obviously make no money. Sound easy?
Why Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Affiliate Marketing works because companies like Amazon, Commission Junction, and Clickbank are willing to facilitate the process. Most small companies can’t afford to process all of the affiliate commissions and sales, making sure that everyone gets paid properly along the way. That is way larger companies like Clickbank have come into existence. These companies process all of the sales and affiliate payments for a small fee. This makes it much more secure and reliable for affiliates.
Affiliate Marketing is one of the most viable online business models. There are thousands of companies who offer incentives for help in getting traffic and exposure for their products. You can make a substantial income using this business model with solid training in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click, and other Affiliate Marketing tactics. I know several Internet Marketers who make upwards of $25,000 a month. The important take away is this, it IS possible to make money on the Internet, you just have to find the right business model, the right products to sell, and put in the time and effort to do so.
By: Matthew D.C.
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