Month: February 2018

Wealthy Affiliate and affiliate marketing are words that have been used in other posts on this website and more and more people are wondering what it is. It is not yet something that is commonly known. Although within the internet marketing world, everybody knows what the term means. But what is affiliate marketing about? There are different definitions used but they are all about the same.

As I said earlier, there are different definitions used. I will try to say it in a way that it is easy to understand.

Affiliate marketing is a marketing strategy where a company rewards/pays an individual person for attracting customers, sometimes even visitors, to that business. That individual person is called an affiliate.

Online there are different possibilities. Using a website is the possibility that first comes to mind. But it is not the only way. You can also use YouTube, SlideShare, Pinterest, Email marketing, Linkedin, and E-books.

Origin

This started almost 30 years ago. Can you imagine that? As soon as the internet presented itself, people became creative. In 1989 the concept of this type of marketing was introduced by William J. Tobin. He was the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts.

The affiliate marketing programs became widely known by amazon.com. They were not the first but they made an associate program that was liked by both companies and affiliates. Other companies copied this system so they could promote their affiliate programs too. In 1996 Amazon.com started to offer their associates banner or text links. The affiliate could put those banners and links on their websites. When visitors clicked on the links and went to the Amazon.com website, and became customers, the affiliate received a payment. A visitor becomes a customer when he or she buys something.

This is the way that most affiliate programs work nowadays.

Compensation for the affiliate

There are different ways that an affiliate can be paid, compensated. The compensation is not always necessary in the form of money. Sometimes you get a gift card or credit points for ‘free’ gifts. I’m going to give you the three most used forms of affiliate marketing in 2018.

Revenue sharing or pay per sale (PPS): this is when the company pays an affiliate for the cost of advertising when the visitor buys something, in other words, become a customer. This is the method used by 80% of the affiliate programs

Cost per action (CPA): 19% of the affiliate programs use this method. Other names used for CPA are cost per conversion or PPA (pay per acquisition). The company pays the affiliate for leads that result in a sale, a registration, a newsletter sign up. In other words, the company pays for a specific action.

Only 1% uses cost per click (CPC) or cost per mille (CPM), that is the cost per estimated 1000 views). The company makes use of display marketing. Display marketing is also a way of online advertising where the company’s promotional messages are put on social networks as Facebook or search engines results page (like Google and Yahoo).

Why become an affiliate or offer affiliate programs?

Now that you know what affiliate marketing is all about? What are some reasons to become an affiliate? Well here are some reasons:

• The opportunity to work your own hours

This is what most of us want. Isn’t it? This also means that you can do it beside your 9 to 5 job.

• Low start-up costs

To start up a brick-and-mortar business you need a lot of money up front. This is necessary for the store/building, lawyers and inventory. All of this without earning a dime. With Affiliate marketing, no money is needed.

• No expert knowledge needed

Let me put it like this. No expert knowledge needed to start. Along the way, you will become an expert in your niche.

• No staff needed

This is you being the affiliate and only you earning commissions.

• A way to earn a passive income

This is nice. Your website is working 24/7 for you. When you post something, it is work done just once, but over and over again it is helping you to attract visitors and customers.

• You do not need a product

Really? Yes, really. How is that possible? Join an affiliate marketing training market and they will show you how.

Why offer affiliate programs?

What are the possible reasons for a company to offer affiliate programs? When you have read all the above, you can imagine some reasons.

• • More traffic
  • a new group of customers
  • their brand will become more known
  • a different setup of the sales department
  • and ultimately more sales

Where to find affiliate programs?

The place where the company offers their affiliate programs is the place where to find them of course.

1. The far most common place to find affiliate programs is on the website of the company. Most of the time you find info about their affiliate marketing program by scrolling down their home page. Scroll down to the bottom and you will see something like associate or affiliate program.
2. Using Google. Search for affiliate programs + …… On the dots fill in your niche.
3. Using Google again if you do not have a niche, but hen search for ‘List of Affiliate programs’
4. Clickbank

Finally

Now that you know what affiliate marketing is about, would you like to join an affiliate marketing training to experience it for yourself? There are a lot of programs available. On this website, I have reviewed Wealthy Affiliate and Elite Marketing Pro. I have followed some free courses on the internet, but I had nothing after that. No sorry, I had more questions after the videos and lessons.

What I like about Wealthy Affiliate the most is the task-based video training. While in training you are creating websites, generating traffic and so on. Within 6 weeks of training, I got two pages indexed by Google.

But the choice is all yours. Educate yourself and soon you can make educated decisions on an affiliate program that suits you.