How to Make Money Online Through Affiliate Marketing

Are you interested in establishing yourself as a success and icon in affiliate marketing? If so, you must be curious as to how to go about this.

For most people, the mechanisms necessary for securing this goal may appear daunting at first. Fear not. Here is all the information you need to maneuver your way into the industry.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

It is ideally an online run business that involves advertisers, consumers and publishers/affiliates.

The advertisers could be companies that offer products or services that need an intermediary (which in this case is the publisher) to vouch for them and guarantee sales.

Publishers get commissions when the products or services they recommend are purchased by the consumers.

Who are the Affiliates?

The affiliate is the publisher who can take the form of a site or blog. They function by providing positive reinforcement to goods or services being offered by using banners ads, text boxes, and text links on their sites.

Affiliates introduce products or services to online readers and get paid when a purchase is made.

Who are the Advertisers?

Advertisers are commonly known as merchants/retailers or the brand that sells products/services. They outsource publishers to do their bidding.

They do this to ensure that they generate maximum leads or sales. Advertisers often make payments to publishers via Pay Per Click, Leads or Pay Per Lead.

How Do You Get Payments?

It is interesting to note that not all visits to a site translate to sales. The publisher’s goal is to convert all visits to the blog into sales because advertisers only pay for actual sales and not just visits.

Most merchants are aware that by paying the sales, they are able to prevent paying so much money to the publisher when no products or service has been purchased.

Below are the three most common means of payment in affiliate marketing.

• Pay Per Click (PPC) is a program that works by paying the affiliate for every single valid click made on their site, regardless of whether or not a sale was made.
• Pay Per Lead (PPL) is a program that allows advertisers to pay a fixed percentage for every sale or qualified action made. This includes Installation, Submission of Online Forms, Surveys, and Free Trials etc.
• Pay Per Sale (PPS) allows the advertisers to pay the publishers an agreed upon percentage of all cumulative sales qualified. An example is Amazon Associates which offers 15% commission on every single sale made.

What are Affiliate Networks?

This is essentially an interconnection between the Publishers and Advertisers. A good example is ClickBank Commission Junction that tracks, reports and manages all the payments made by Advertisers.

The initial step is to sign up for an advertisers affiliate program then get access to a link or a special URL that contains the affiliates Username. This link is used whenever you wish to mention the advertiser.

Once a reader visits your site and clicks on the affiliate’s link to the advertiser’s website, a cookie is then dropped in the customer’s computer.

If for instance a customer makes a purchase from the merchant’s website and follows through to the checkout process, the advertiser will get a cookie this will notify them that the sale belongs to you and will credit you for making the sale.

The sales can be made either weekly or monthly depending on your individual preference.

Conclusion

It is important to note that there are no charges incurred for joining an affiliate program. The only cost will be included is when you wish to upgrade to using PPC marketing or email campaigns.

You only need a few writing and marketing skills. So go ahead, try your luck in affiliate marketing, it may just be the best business move you ever made.