Affiliate Marketing – Your Basic Guide!

Affiliate Marketing – Your Basic Guide!

Making money online is turning out to be a lucrative option with so many different ways to earn extra cash. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the popular online options to make some money while staying at home. It is a type of online marketing where affiliates are required to direct customers to the desired sites to buy and use the products and services offered by them.

How many people are involved in this form of marketing?

There are a total of four entities involved. The first is the merchant who is the prime business entity. The second is the affiliate who advertises the product or service of the merchant. The third is the network through which advertising is done and the fourth is the consumer who purchases the products or services. While these are the four entities since the beginning, today there are other players that include super affiliates, affiliate marketing agencies, and third-party vendors.

How is affiliate marketing similar or different from regular internet advertising?

Affiliate marketing techniques are not very different from other online marketing techniques as, like other marketing techniques, it uses SEO, paid marketing on popular search engines, email marketing, etc. On the other side, it differs as affiliates use their blogs to publish positive reviews of the products and/or services to be marketed. It, therefore, works quite a bit like word of mouth publicity.

How are affiliates paid?

There are various ways of compensating in affiliate marketing. While some old compensation methods are still in existence, there are newer ones that enable faster and better payment. CPS (cost per sale) or revenue sharing is the most preferred compensation methods. Nearly 80% of total affiliates and merchants prefer this method. CPA (cost per action) is another common method of compensation today and is preferred by close to 19% of the affiliates. The other compensation methods in use are CPC (Cost Per Click) and CPM (Cost Per Mille).

What are the benefits of affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a win-win situation for merchants, affiliates, and customers. Indeed, merchants like it as it increases their penetration and helps to reach out more people and wider markets. Whereas affiliates find it beneficial as it helps them to make money while sitting at home. Finally, customers like it as it helps them to gather more information about the products or services that they are looking for. Hence, they get more options to choose from.Making money online is turning out to be a lucrative option with so many different ways to earn extra cash. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the popular online options to make some money while staying at home. It is a type of online marketing where affiliates are required to direct customers to the desired sites to buy and use the products and services offered by them.