How To Take Advantage Of Affiliate Programs

Affiliate program, also known as associate program

, was introduced by the company CDNow as it launched its Buy Web Program back in 1994, enabling buyers to purchase products merely by one click of the mouse.

Revenue sharing, which essentially means one company earning commission just by referring to another, is the key concept behind the birth of affiliate programs. Besides revenue sharing, cost per action is another way in which the merchant deals with publisher who provides advertising space. Another one of the earliest examples of associate/affiliate marketing is the conglomerate between CDNow and the music company, Geffen Records. CDNow began providing links to the website of Geffen Records by featuring on its webpage the different artists whose albums could be purchased from Geffen Records.

The speedy efficiency of such affiliate marketing is evident in the fact that one can jump from one webpage to another without having to search for the different websites or opening them up separately. In one sense affiliate marketing can be said to be one vertical line connecting two parallel ones.

It is needless to say how profitable affiliate program or marketing can be. You are rewarded with handsome commissions for publicizing websites/companies to customers. A prime example of affiliate marketing is one of its pioneers, Amazon.com which has attracted over 30,000 webmasters to offer great publicity in return for a nominal commission.

There are many obvious advantages to your investing in affiliate program. As a merchant the more the number of affiliates you get to present links to your website the more popular you are in the web world. Similarly you also manage to step up in the search engine rankings.

Affiliate marketing can be said to be a by-product of online marketing and online retailing. Thus if you manage to expand your affiliates you stand a better chance of retailing your products to people from all over the world, leading to an automatic increase in your sales.

With the amazing potential of the internet to reach across cultures and nations in no time, the target audience regarding your sales can also increase significantly. The affiliates can place different promotional tools such as text links, banner ads, buttons, etc to popularize the merchant's website they affiliate. Affiliate marketing is thus able to offer a wide variety of advertisements as it utilizes ideas which are unique to such a visual medium as the internet. Another added advantage to this form of marketing is the building of brand awareness for you business which is so vital to entrepreneurial success.

So go ahead and invest in affiliate programs to flourish in your individual venture. Remember that by doing so, you'll be just a click away from your customers.

by: Gary Pettit

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