What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a internet based practice where business rewards its affiliates who bring in new custom, through sales or unique visits, through website, e-mail or social network referrals.

So who are the affiliates?

They can be anyone you want them to be! There are different ways of getting affiliates for your site. You can offer a signup service on your website. If you do this, your website will need the ability to track referrals. This is normally done using cookies.

Another way of gaining affiliates is via a third-party service, called an ‘affiliate network’. These networks have the added bonus that they already have a large customer base that they can market your affiliate service too and they do all the sales and referral tracking for you. The only negative is cost. If you have a small budget, the DIY approach may be your best starting point.

The affiliate process

Its a pretty straight forward process…

1. An ‘affiliate’ will sign up on your site, or through an affiliate network.
2. The affiliate will then link through to your website. This could be a direct link to a product, or a link through to your main shop.
3. When a customer visits your site via your affiliate, the visit is logged.
4. If the customer goes on to make a purchase, this is also logged. This may not be an immediate purchase, it could be a purchase of up to 30 days after the visit was referred. The period something you can define yourself.
5. Commission is then paid to the affiliate. Commission levels are also something that you can set yourself.

The future of affiliate marketing

With the boom in social networking, affiliate marketing is going to play an even bigger part in online business activities. Social networking is quick. A customer could review your product and within minutes you could be gaining new traffic.