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Affiliate programs

 

Affiliate programs, also refferred to as affiliate marketing, are a method of internet marketing where a business rewards its ‘partners’, known as affiliates, for every customer or, in some occasions, visitor that they bring to the main business through promotion of the business’ products and/or services.

The methods of promotion used by the affiliates are very similar to those that a regular online business would use. But one key advantage that online businesses, that offer affiliate programs, have, is mass exposure of their products and/or services by third-parties, namely their affiliates.

Affiliate programs:

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Successful affiliate programs have, by definition, a large number of affiliates, also referred to as publishers. These publishers are in turn generating mass traffic to the main business website through various marketing activities. Some of the methods that publishers use to promote their partner’s products and/or services are:
-  Paid search engine advertisements.
-  Display advertising on various websites, in the form of logos, banners,
slogans, etc. These can be paid advertisements or free ones.
-  E-mail marketing. Two main types:
     o   Sollicited: usually in the form of newsletters that the end-user has signed up for.
     o   Unsollicited: various email advertisements that the end-user has not signed up for, also known as spam.
-  Publisher’s own website that promotes the products and/or services of the main business –their affiliate program provider. This is the most common of the marketing methods used by publishers. These websites are usually set-up as product/service reviews, with obvious bias towards the services/products of their affiliate provider.

Businesses with an affiliate program use different methods to reward, and in essence recruit, their affiliates. The most widely-used and effective reward method is that of revenue sharing, also referred to by businesses as cost per sale (CPS).
This involves the publisher (affiliate) in using the various marketing methods discussed to attract visitors to the website of the main business and then having them purchase the offered service and/or product. Once the purchase has been made, the affiliate receives a percentage of the revenue generated by the purchase made by the customer that he brought to the main website.

The advantages of such an affiliate program are numerous. Since it is in the publisher’s (affiliate partner) best interest to direct the right audience (target group) to the main website, because this results in a higher chance of purchase, the affiliate program provider receives a flow of traffic consisting primarily of his target group.

Additionally, these advertising efforts on the publisher’s part are performance based, meaning that the publisher only gets paid once he creates a sale. In essence, the affiliate program generates extra revenue to the provider of the program at a very modest, if any at all, cost.

There are many different types of affiliate programs being offered on the internet, all with varying terms and rewards. When looking for an affiliate program, it is important to keep in mind that the more popular a particular affiliate program is, the more competition you will face from other affiliate partners – all advertising the same services and/or products.

Finally, it is important to do a background check about a certain company that is offering an affiliate program before you invest time and effort into their program, as it is not uncommon for some companies to take advantage of their affiliate partners without actually rewarding their efforts.

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Subjects keywords: Affiliate programs, Successful affiliate programs, Best Affiliate programs, List of Affiliate programs, Affiliate partners. All information about Affiliate programs.