AFFILIATE MARKETING

What is Affiliate Marketing?

In a nutshell affiliate marketing is you sell someone's (the vendor) product and they pay you a commission for your sales. The benefit of affiliate marketing to you is the vendor handles stocking, shipping and customer service on the product. The benefit of affiliate marketing to the vendor is they get sales people that only get paid when the vendor makes money. Commissions for affiliate marketing range from a few percent to 75 percent.

You can find affiliate marketing programs for almost any item you can think of. Products that can be delivered electronically are usually the most profitable for affiliate marketing. There are next to no production, storage or shipping costs involved.

Several acronyms are commonly used in affiliate marketing. PPP usually refers to pay-per-performance. You are paid when you get a customer to do a specific action that the vendor wants. PPP affiliate marketing generally can be sub-divided into two specific actions. PPS which refers to pay-per-sale and PPL which refers to pay-per-lead.

Some affiliate marketing programs allow for residual income. You get paid for repeat purchases by people you refer of products that have recurring costs. Examples of affiliate marketing products in this category are web hosting, membership sites or monthly services.

Other common terms used in affiliate marketing are Single-tier, Two-tier and Multi-tier. Single tier refers to an affiliate marketing program where you get paid for the sales you specifically make. A Two-tier affiliate marketing program means you get paid for sales you make and also get paid a commission on sales made by other affiliate marketers that are enrolled under you. Multi-tier refers to affiliate marketing systems where you get paid a commission past the second tier.

Is Affiliate Marketing Complex or Difficult?

No. As with any business there is a learning curve in affiliate marketing. There are several styles of affiliate marketing. You can build an affiliate marketing web site for a single product or you can build an affiliate marketing review web site. You can use a blog for affiliate marketing or your can use direct linking to the vendor's site. You can also use affiliate marketing to promote your own product.

You will find people promoting they will teach you everything about affiliate marketing with their book, program, blog or what ever. Be skeptical. Affiliate marketing is a huge topic that has many dimensions. There is also huge money to be made by those that take the time to learn affiliate marketing skills.

As we mentioned above, affiliate marketing is selling someone else's product or getting others to sell your product. Many other factors enter in to creating a successful affiliate marketing program or campaign. Creating effective ads, Identifying keywords, Landing pages, website hosting and design, article submission, website promotion, PPC and blogging are all elements that factor into a complete affiliate marketing program.

A common mistake often made in affiliate marketing is trying to do too many styles of affiliate marketing at once. New affiliate marketers neglect to learn affiliate marketing properly before they move on. There are a lot of great tools available to help with affiliate marketing. Some of these tools are listed below.

Affiliate Marketing Tool Recommendations:

Web sites, Domain Names: PowderRiverDomains.com

Blogs: Blogger

Keywords: Keyword Elite; Wordtracker

Article submission: Article Pro Software