Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing Overview

Affiliate marketing is an e-commerce strategy that promotes online web businesses. Typically, an affiliate will place a merchant's link or banner advertisement on their site, and the merchant will pay the affiliate a commission when sales (or other desired actions) are made through that link. Affiliate marketing programs can work well for online merchants selling products, or for lead generation websites that drive traffic and collect data. Affiliate marketing programs are successful because they leverage an unofficial sales force that promotes their web business across multiple websites.

Affiliate Marketing Programs

Affiliate marketing programs are effective methods of generating sales and leads through a pay for performance system. An affiliate marketing program starts when a client and their account manager create an offer to potential affiliates. An offer is determined by combining a particular goal with a cash incentive for achievement of the goal: increasing leads, increasing traffic, increasing sales, etc. Web merchants have two basic methods for providing an incentive to website publishers to promote the offer: Cost per action and revenue sharing.

Cost Per Action Affiliate Marketing Program

Using a cost per action method, commonly referred to as CPA, the affiliate is paid for generating successful actions that are defined in the offer. An example of a cost per action method would be an affiliate driving web traffic to a website and enticing people to fill out a contact us form. The affiliate is paid only when the agreed upon action has occurred.

Revenue Sharing Affiliate Marketing Program

The revenue sharing affiliate marketing method rewards affiliates with a flat dollar amount or a commission for each successful sale that was made through the affiliate link. Affiliate programs provide a very clear return on investment (ROI), because the web merchant is only charged for completed orders. Popular products or strong brands work well in affiliate marketing programs. Other features of affiliate programs may include multi-tier referral incentives and bonuses, which are designed to quickly expand the network and grow sales.

Affiliate Marketing - The Steps

Affiliate marketing on the web is similar to traditional, offline affiliate marketing programs.

1. A client's offer is either listed with an affiliate network or privately on their own website. By using a network, a client offloads the responsibility of managing the affiliates, paying the affiliates, and dealing with problems when they arise.
2. Affiliates find the offer and sign up to the affiliate program. Many programs have restrictions on content and sometimes review all applications before approving an affiliate.
3. The affiliates download copy or banners and place them on their websites. Web based affiliate marketing programs are not limited to banners, but may also include PPC, comparison shopping engines, email and newsletters, and text links.
4. When a customer clicks on the web merchant's affiliate banner or other link, they are sent to the web merchant's home page and a tracking cookie is set on the customer's computer.
5. When the customer completes a purchase, information of the sale is sent to the affiliate program. This information will be used for affiliate tracking and paying the affiliate. The data that is sent to the affiliate network includes the total order price, order number, and where the customer came from. No personally identifiable information is transmitted to the affiliate network.

Prime Visibility's experts can setup, administer, and analyze a comprehensive affiliate marketing program that will help you achieve your business goals. Affiliate marketing is a great complement to other Internet marketing strategies and is yet another platform you can use to drive qualified traffic and grow sales.

Learn More About Our Affiliate Marketing Programs

Contact Prime Visibility today to learn more about affiliate marketing programs, to obtain answers to any questions you may have or to request your FREE Internet Marketing Information Kit. Prime Visibility is a full-service Internet marketing firm offering a broad array of services.

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