Affiliate marketing is defined as a widespread method of
promotion in which an affiliate (or associate) is rewarded for
every view, sale, and/or registration produced through the
affiliate’s effort.

It’s similar to collecting a finder’s-fee or the commissions
typical of retail store clerks. The more one sells… the more
one gets paid.

Compensation calculations vary and could be based on any of the
following:

PPC (pay-per-click) a specific amount is paid for each visit

PPL (pay-per-lead) where registration or sign-up counts

PPS (pay-per-sale) a specific commission per sale is paid

If your goal is to generate your total income online, you can
drive traffic from your subscriber lists to affiliate links just
as easily as to your own product links.

What About Product Sales and Marketing?

You’ll want to watch for great products and services with the
potential to benefit your niche and your mailing lists. To build
trust and income, it’s best to recommend only those products that
will be of specific interest to them. It’s a win-win situation
for everyone that way.

When an affiliate is marketing any product, the cost of
advertising the product is absorbed by the affiliate. It’s
important to keep this cost in mind when promoting products. The
higher the percentage of affiliate income possible from any
quality product, the more that product is worth promoting.

When a product is sold through the affiliate’s link, depending on
the service used, the total sale is divided up among the vendor
or service, the affiliate, the taxing authority, the shipper (if
any), and the payment processor.

It is common and expected that all affiliate details be spelled
out in the affiliate sign-up process. However, you needn’t be
afraid to contact any vendor to clarify their affiliate program
if you have questions. Often you can telephone or email for a
fast reply.

Is a Digital Lifestyle for Me?

Many standard retailers offer very small rewards for affiliate
sales while most internet marketers offer around 50%. This is why
being an affiliate of digital products can be very lucrative in a
relatively short period of time.

Although the number of affiliate programs for tangible goods and
off-line services is rising, a completely digital lifestyle can
be developed solely from digital or downloadable affiliate
products that may never take physical form.

Of course it’s important to note that as an affiliate of any
tangible product, you generally never do more than promote a link
to the product online. So in that sense it’s the same as a
digital product.

One of the best places to find digital products to affiliate with
is ClickBank.com. They have an automatic affiliate ‘hoplink’
program built into their payment processing service so that
affiliate payments are not left up to the product owner to
process.

Three other good affiliate programs to check into are:

Amazon.com
http://www.amzon.com/gp/browse.html/102-3525955-0485737?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=3435371
(not an affiliate link)

LinkShare.com
http://www.linkshare.com

CommissionJunction.com
http://www.cj.com/solutions/online_marketing.jsp

Staying with reputable, well-known internet vendors makes a great
deal of sense because you know you will get paid, when to expect
a check or bank deposit, and you can see your account details
online at any time.

How Do I Get Started?

There are many ways to approach affiliate marketing, but a basic
starting point is to have a web site with text or image affiliate
links to products you want to promote. Generally you want to stay
focused within a niche or interest group to increase your sales
potential.

If you have used the products, your promotional efforts could
include a product review based on your own experience along with
images and other supporting information.

Developing an email opt-in list is helpful in affiliate marketing
as it gives the promoter an opportunity to find the products with
the most potential benefit for a group of like-minded
individuals.

When providing a service such as this, most affiliate marketers
are able to reach enough potential customers to produce some
affiliate income.

When a lot of products are promoted to several targeted niche
markets, it is possible to create an income of substance over
time. Especially when the affiliate marketer is only promoting
quality products with a real potential to benefit customers
within the niche.

In summary, affiliate marketing is a great way to build an income
without having a product of your own, and without having to do
much more than get interested people to view product information
through your affiliate links. It’s very easy to get started and
can eventually put a lot of money in your pocket.

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Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing, product sales and marketing

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 at 8:00 am and is filed under Make Money Online. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.