Affiliate Programs & Internet Marketing
By<p>Definition of Affiliate Program
Affiliate marketing involves an association between two players – 1) the Merchant (also known as the advertiser, or partner), and 2) the Affiliate (sometimes called the publisher). If we look at the Affiliate Program in its entirety, we must involve another party, the Customer, as well.
The Merchant makes available the product for sale, and the Affiliate acts to sell that product for the merchant and/or drive traffic to the merchant’s site. In return, the Merchant agrees to pay the Affiliate a commission for sales and/or established performance measures.
Commission Arrangements
Payment arrangements are typically performance-based (which is a form of risk mitigation by the Merchant) and arrangements are often structured as Pay Per Click (PPC), Pay Per Sale (PPS) and Pay Per Lead (PPL) – or some blend.
Affiliate Marketing Groupings
If we look at affiliate marketing in terms of depth, we have three different classifications: 1) single-tier, 2) two-tier and 3) multi-tier programs.
Single-Tier amoxil online Affiliate Marketing
In Single-Tier Affiliate Marketing, the Affiliates get the commission, only for sending visitors or sales to the merchant’s buy amoxil online website. Pay/performance and pay/click fall within this category.
Two-Tier Affiliate Marketing
In Two-Tier Marketing, the Affiliate gets paid commission for every action performed by the people he’s referred directly, plus he gets paid additional commission when any of the people he’s personally referred gets the commission. Thus, there are two levels to his commission plan and the Affiliate gets paid both directly and indirectly.
Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing Program
The multi-tier marketing is very similar to Two-Tier Marketing, but here, the Affiliates get paid for the sales made by their downline in multiple, unlimited, levels.
Residual Income Marketing
In Residual Income Marketing, the Affiliate is rewarded for every sale that is made by a person referred by him.
In Residual marketing, Affiliates get rewarded for every sale that his referral makes on the Merchant’s website. The only requirement is that on the first time visit, the visitor must come from the Affiliate’s authorized affiliate link. Then, whenever that same person returns to the Merchant website (even without using the affiliate link), the Affiliate will be paid for every sale performed by the visitor.
Cookies make this strategy work. A “cookie” is created on the first-time visitor’s computer. This cookie defines the affiliate id of the Affiliate. Cookies generally expire after 3 months; however, some may be effective longer.
When a visitor hits the Merchant’s site, his computer is checked to see if there is a previously created cookie. If a cookie is found, the affiliate id is retrieved from it and the Affiliate gets credited for any purchase made by the visitor.
Win-Win-Win
Once the affiliate marketing relationship is well-planned and well-executed, everyone wins:
- The Merchant gets increased visibility and market penetration, locating customers that would otherwise be outside the Merchant’s market reach.
- The Affiliate earns a commission for online sales, without the hassles involved with establishing a full e-commerce site or having to manage inventories and fulfil orders.
- The Customer learns about, and can readily access desireable and useful products that s/he would otherwise not find – at least not easily.
Good affiliate programs are Win-Win-Win situations.
If you like what you’ve just read, and would like to learn how to leverage your efforts, put your income on autopilot, and become a millionaire, get the FREE Infinite Income Plan report here. Follow me on Twitter: @MaxProMe.
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