This article was last updated on the 27th June, 2015 by Patrick Carpen.
In internet marketing terminology, an affiliate is a person who shares a link to a product or service on the internet and receives a commission if a sale is made. The link is usually encoded to track the referrer and credit the sale to his or her account.
Because of the rapid rise in online businesses, affiliate marketing has turned into a very profitable activity. Affiliates or affiliate marketers employ a large variety of marketing methods to market affiliate products. These include email marketing, per-per-click advertising, advertising on their personal websites or blog, and including links in Ebooks and special reports. The ways to market affiliate products are so wide and varied, that they are limited only to the imagination.
The reward for making one sale of an affiliate product ranges from 1 to 90 percent of the cost of the product. So if the product costs $100.00, and the affiliate marketer sells it one time through his or her personal affiliate link, he or she may receive from 1 to 90 dollars as a “commission”.
This wide range in commission account is because different online businesses have different policies in their affiliate programs. Some pay very little, and some pay a lot.
What has proven true however, is that it makes sense to have an affiliate program if you are selling something online. By making your product or service available for affiliates to sell, you can harness the power of thousands of affiliate marketers who just know how to get your product or service in front of eager buyers.
So you understand what is an affiliate program and who is an affiliate marketer, but what is an affiliate network? An affiliate network is an online company which brings online sellers or service providers and affiliate marketers together.
By joining an affiliate network, an affiliate marketer may search a huge database of products which offer an affiliate program and with a few clicks, generate a link with which to market the product for a commission. This makes it quick and easy for the affiliate marketer to find as many products or services as he or she wishes to market and generate affiliate links in a snap for them. The next steps would be sending out the links and receiving healthy commissions if sales are made.
Affiliate marketing is an art all by itself and how not to waste money trying to market affiliate products or services is another story all by itself. Nevertheless, there are many very successful affiliate marketers.
Affiliate networks may list thousands of products and services with affiliate program offers, and are usually free to sign up to. If you have a product or service on the web, you may want to consider harnessing the power of thousands of affiliates through one or more of these affiliate networks.
On the other hand, if you are an affiliate marketer, or you are thinking of becoming one, you can choose from literally hundreds of thousands of products from the scores of affiliate networks listed here. Have fun!
