Often times, especially for people who have been blogging for a while, we make assumptions that everyone knows what we’re talking about. The reality is even the most commonly used terms become black holes for some new folks. Today, let’s review one of the big ones: affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is just a fancy phrase for producing results for a seller and getting paid for it. In some cases, you could look at it like selling a product for a company without having the need to carry inventory or fulfill an order. Not a bad concept!
Here’s one of the ways it could work, in a nutshell:
- Visitor arrives at your site
- Visitor clicks on a banner ad on your site and it leads him to your partner’s site
- Visitor purchases a product from your partner
- Your partner pays you
Seems like a simple model, right? Well here’s the best part, in many cases, the visitor doesn’t even have to buy anything! Although Pay Per Sale is very common, there are other ways affiliate marketing could work. I’ll describe them in detail in my next post.
One last thing, even though concept has created many affiliate millionaires, it’s actually not all that easy and success won’t come overnight. The part that people don’t realize is that it requires a lot of work to get visitors to your site. There are many resources, especially online resources, that can help you meet your goal. The key really involves combining other people’s lessons learned with a lot of your own trial and error.
I am a business professional
with an entrepreneurial spirit. Although I have an MBA and managed websites and IT departments
for several Fortune 500 companies ... 
[...] my last post, I stated that I would provide details on the various types of affiliate marketing. Of course, I [...]
[...] It’s amazing how little the general public knows about affiliate marketing and networks. We all had to start at the clueless stage at some point but if you’re a blogger, you better get ramped up quick. Monetizing your blog is more than just slapping Google AdSense all over your pages. You’ll want multiple revenue streams and affiliate marketing is definitely one of the must-haves on your site. [...]
While payout is usually pretty high it’s also pretty rare.
Many tech shows (tekzilla, geek brief, app judgement, etc) use affiliate marking.
.-= Brad´s last blog ..Canadian Tech Blogger Will Take Part In Earth 2010 =-.
Payouts are pretty good for me. I’ve mixed and matched since day one and I’m pretty happy with what I have on the sponsor section right now. But then again, who knows, maybe it’s time for another change!
Affiliate Marketing doesn’t work for me much… But still I won’t give up on this… Looking forward for the next post…
.-= Cebu Tech Blogger´s last blog ..Windows 7 Keep Restarting- Time to Upgrade =-.
IMO, affiliate marketing must be part of the revenue mix. There’s bound to be something that can make you money!
Its true that it seems like everyone writes about affiliate marketing assuming that we all know exactly what it is. Thanks for clearing this up. I am looking forward to the next post too.
Just started with some affiliate partners, and have already started making money, THIS IS GREAT! My initial goal with our blog was to drive more traffic to our web-site, and to offer informative content to our viewers. Affiliate marketing was not in the original plan but by adding affiliates has been such a big help, and now I see the future possibilities that could lie ahead.
Rob, experiment a bit and I’m sure you’ll uncover a partner that works well for you. Just play around and monitor the progress.
I think the most dificult part of the affiliate business is getting the traffic,once you get it right other aspects can be fixed easily.
Yes, with traffic you can calibrate the location and see what works and what is not working other wise is like shouting in the dark
bikram’s last post…Acupuncture for Weight Loss
I have really been working on kicking it up a gear this last month on affiliate marketing and it is starting to pay off. The key I have found is to be promoting products and services that you already use.
.-= SEO Article Writers´s last blog ..SEO Article Writers Test – The articles are in… =-.
Very true about that. It’s pretty easy to spot someone hawking products they’ve never used just for profit. I’ve been a customer for every affiliate you see on this site.
A good brief about affiliate marketing. Success does not come overnight, you are right about it. It also requires a good amount of your time in the begining, you will need to identifyt the right keywords so that you get good rankings so that you can get the commission you deserve.
Yeah affiliate marketing comes with experience.You learn every day.
.-= Blogger Templates´s last blog ..Static Pages "Read more" problem solution in Blogger =-.
One of the lessons I am learning is that although I am familiar with a product, my readers may be as well. But, there are also readers and passerby folks that had no clue a product existed and those are the readers I need to pitch my affiliates to. So, even though I fell like a long product post is redundant to my seasoned reader they are very relevant to the newbie reader. And those are the readers I need to focus more attention on.
.-= Ms. Freeman´s last blog ..New!!! Guest Blogger Create-a-Post =-.
so can you choose the individual company for pay per sale? My site sell logo designs so a good affiliate would be a font company or maybe stock image site?
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by CBAffiliati: What is affiliate marketing? http://bte.tc/gSb #RTW #RTW…
nice post and I think the most difficult part of the affiliate business is getting the traffic:-)
nice post and I think the most difficult part of the
Your message was sent successfully. Thanks.
Its true that it seems like everyone writes about affiliate marketing assuming that we all know exactly what it is. Thanks for clearing this up. I am looking forward to the next post too.
nice post and I think the most difficult part of the
Enormously educational appreciate it, I do believe your current subscribers will likely want more content similar to this keep up the great effort.
Well that is it really in a nutshell, and it is really hard work
Thanks a lot sharingThanks a lot sharingd
Thanks a lot sharingThanks a lot sharingThanks a lot sharing
Thanks for sharing that is it in a nutshell
Informative post, the easy part is getting the website up. The hard part is keeping up with all these changes that google are making to their systems.
smoothie maker’s last post…Philips HR2020/50 Silver Blender
Pretty informative for people who didnt know what AM was. Which included me.