subject: How Affiliate Marketing Works? [print this page] The widespread of the wings of technology have introduced radical changes to the way we communicate. Individuals to larger organizations have started to exploit the powers of the Internet in reaching a wider spectrum of people. For companies, it provides the means to reach huge volume of people with varying interests that can be harnessed to enhance the brand value. With the world enclosed in the net, an individual can utilize the advancements in technology to improve his income generation, thereby enhancing his standard of living.
Affiliate marketing is one such concept evolved with the intention of employing the influence of Internet in improving the financial stability of the people involved. It is a process wherein the business house compensates the publisher of a site for his efforts to direct visitors to the merchant site. This opens the opportunity to widen the customer base and create superior brand image.
Basic working of affiliate marketing
A publisher of a site introduce contents based on his passions that have a far-reaching and alluring nature which can draw the attention of a larger set of people. His quench for information and the persisting need to find solutions to them induces him to incorporate the new found knowledge into the existing content, on an ongoing basis. These result in making his work one of the sought after sites by hundreds of people. The constant flow of visitors can be monetized by the publisher through seeking an effective affiliate program.
Under the affiliate program, the publisher of the site approaches a merchant who is on the look out for propagating his products or services and the brand. The publisher, then called as the affiliate or the associate, provides the link to the merchant website through his site as a banner ad or text advertisement. With the products offered by the merchant similar in line with the subject matter in the affiliate site, the visitors are enticed to have a peep into what the merchant has to offer. The click to the merchant site by the visitors can make the affiliate entitled to compensation. Depending on the terms agreed upon, the affiliate gets paid on the stipulated terms when a customer clicks the link provided or on every lead generated or on every positive transaction that gets evolved.
Similar to the way it generates additional income to an associate, for a merchant the varying contents inform him of the changing consumer behavior that can be exploited in further development of the products to be launched. Similarly, the goodwill and the profitability that rises on account of this program are enormous. Unlike traditional marketing, the merchant enjoys the benefit of paying only on the materialization of desired output.
A simple, but effective technique, affiliate marketing can be a great income generator if exploited successfully.
