What is Affiliate marketing?

June 10, 2008

 Affiliate marketing is the marketing of other peoples products for which you earn a percentage from each sale, known as a sales commission. Sales commissions vary considerably, for example from 1% on physical products up to 75% on some information products…

Affiliate marketing is particularly suited to the Internet and unlike a physical sales organization, there is no personnel employment and no employment contracts to worry about.

To become an affiliate you sign up for the affiliate program and are given a special code to use when advertising products. When a potential customer visits the sales website through your special code, they are electronically tagged with your affiliate details. If the customer makes a sale, you as the affiliate are automatically credited with the commission amount.

Many sellers make use of cookies to track affiliate sales, so even if the visitor does not make a purchase on the advertiser’s site right away, a cookie will be set which is valid for 30-90 days.

A cookie is just a small piece of code which is left on the visitors computer which contains details about the website, product and your affiliate code. As long as the visitor has the cookie in their browser cache, when they return to the advertisers site a month or so later, you will still receive the commission from the sale.

What do you need to become an affiliate and become involved in affiliate marketing?

One of the easiest forms of affiliate marketing is article marketing, also known as bum marketing, because it is so simple any bum could learn how to do it. The only requirements are:

1. A computer with a connection to the Internet. It doesn’t even need to be your own – although owning your own computer will make the task considerably easier.

2. A text editor and the ability to write short articles.

3. A couple of hours each day to write articles.

4. Last but not least – a desire to succeed which will get you away from your daily distractions and seated in front of your computer writing articles…

When it comes to making money online, affiliate marketing is the best way to start. You start by selling other peoples products and as you gain experience start selling your own products and allow affiliates to earn commissions on their sales of your products.

Posted in Affiliate Marketing