So What Is Affiliate Marketing Anyway?

So What is affiliate marketing?

You, the affiliate, via your website, or any other means drive traffic to a merchant’s site. The merchant may be selling a product eg DVDs or e books, or they may be trying to sign on clients eg a bank. The merchant pays you a commission once the visitor has completed the desired action eg bought a product or completed a registration form

The beauty of this is, once your site is up and running, you can continue to earn money from it whether you are in bed, on holiday or sleeping. This is called passive income. It is passive because after the initial effort of researching your chosen market, building a website and setting up your campaign, you can continue to earn from this with very minimal day to day input in your campaign.

Say, for example, a company manufactures Product X and that company has a website and affiliate program. You like the look of the product and are interested in promoting it. You build a content rich website about some related matter, apply to the company’s affiliate program and get an affiliate link.

The link given to you is unique to you and contains your affiliate ID [a number or your affiliate name]. The link allows the merchant to track sales generated from your visitors so that you get your commission for sales generated via that link.

Place this link on your site and drive traffic to it. Every time someone clicks on that link on your website and then buys product X, you get a commission.

It gets better! With some reputable affiliate programs, the person does not actually have to buy during that click. So say they landed on your website, clicked on your affiliate link to product X, looked at it then clicked off without purchasing. A week later, they log in directly to product X’s site and make the purchase, you still get your commission! This is because the merchant's site installs a cookie on the surfer’s computer.

Note of caution: Cookies vary in their duration so read the companies affiliate agreement carefully to find out the life span of their cookie. A 3 month cookie is more desirable that a one week cookie, for example.

The buzz word here is Content Rich Website. What is in it for you?

You do not need to develop your own product. You make money promoting other peoples product.

At affiliate marketing Introduction we advice that you eventually develop your own product

You have no responsibility for after sales service for the product. This is all handled by the merchant

You do not deal with shipping or storage or packaging or inventories. Yes, you guessed it right, the merchant deals with all that also

You can promote one product, several products, drop a product if you are not satisfied with it. You are not tied in to any product

What is in it for the merchant?

More exposure

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What affiliate Marketing is not

Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick business.
It requires a lot of hard work and determination.

As you get involved with affiliate marketing you will come across a lot of products that claim to teach you how to make hundreds of dollars in 15 mins. Beware of the hype!! The reality for most of us marketers is that it takes a few months of hard work to start making a substantial income.

So if it takes so much hard work and dedication, why affiliate marketing? Imagine for a second if you continue in your current job [Just Over Broke] for the next 10 years, will you earn enough to be financially free for the rest of your life?

Now if you find a legal business that if worked at for a few months or years has the potential to make you financially free for the rest of your life, would you not grasp the opportunity?

If you would like to see the program that I use to make a nice living online Click here.