Affiliate Marketing allows you to
make money online without a web site or products.
Affiliate programs are a great way to get started in an online business. You can
sell them via a web site, blog or email (although to make top money you will
need a web site). The top Affiliates make a great living from this and there are
thousands who make a decent amount of extra cash each month.
Basically, being an affiliate earns you commission by reselling other companies
products or services. The transaction and payment is handled by the Affiliate
Network. You don't have to develop a product, stock inventory, deal with orders,
shipping and/or customer complaints. All you need to do is get people to click
on your affiliate link.
An affiliate link will usually be
a unique code you add to a URL link to the the merchants web site. This code
tells the merchant that the visitor has come from you. If someone clicks on this
link and purchases the product you will get a percentage of the overall price
paid to you as a commission. The percentage can vary from single figure
percentages to over 70%.
When someone follows your link to a product page they don't necessarily have to
purchase the product first time. In many cases a 'Cookie' is saved on the
prospective customers machine. A cookie is a file which in this instance tells
the merchant that it was you that first attracted the customer to the site.
These cookies are valid for a period of time after the customer first uses your
link. This depends on the merchant / affiliate network and can be as long as one
year. If the product is purchased in this time period you get the commission
even if the customer subsequently goes directly to the merchants site.
Some affiliates have 'tiers'. In this instance not only do you get a commission
on any sales you refer but if someone you refer sells the product themselves you
get a commission of these sales.
Some programs have recurring commissions. These reward you for the lifetime of
the customer. Not only do you earn commissions from the initial sale, but you'll
continue to earn a recurring commission as long as that customer remains active.
An example of a recurring commission would be where there is a membership fee
involved. Not only would you earn commission when the customer signs up but you
would earn further commission every time that customer renewed their
subscription. You would get paid for as long as that customer was active.
I hope you're getting the idea now that selling other peoples products can be extremely
profitable !!
As stated above affiliate marketing is where you can sell another company's
service or product and make a commission on every sale or lead. Your job is to
drive traffic (customers) to your affiliate link.
There are affiliate programs for every area and you will be able to find several
that fit your interests (see Affiliate Networks for ideas).
Affiliate programs offer a low cost and risk free way to make serious money. The
reason affiliate programs are so great is that you only need to focus on
marketing. All the rest is looked after by the network or merchant.