Affiliate marketing is defined as the use of promotion in order to sell a service or product for another company. The affiliate, or middle man, is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale provided through their marketing efforts. The level of compensation depends on the main company. The affiliate’s job is to drive sales by linking the consumer to the company who is providing the requested product or service. Many companies use marketing to increase their revenue.

Affiliate programs have contributed to the rise of many leading online companies. Affiliate marketing is a means of achieving a greater degree of success with websites who target specific groups of Internet users. One of the largest and widely known is Amazon.com, selling books, electronics, toys, and even pharmaceuticals. Amazon.com has thousands of affiliated websites, allowing consumers a wide array of avenues in which to reach their products.

Affiliate marketing has blossomed over the years with the increase in merchants fighting for the customer’s attention. An affiliate works very hard to make sure the company is happy with their service, while keeping up with the ability to grab the consumer’s attention, ultimately pulling them to their website. The three most common commissions an affiliate will receive are through either pay per click, pay per lead, or pay per sale. Pay per click is simply that, every time someone visits your site and clicks on the merchant’s ad you get paid. Pay per lead means you most often need to get someone to sign up for whatever it may be the merchant is offering, like a credit card for example. Pay per sale means you must get the consumer to buy the product, this commission is by far the most lucrative.

Many people have turned to affiliate marketing as a way of supplementing income or as a full time stay at home job (great for moms who aren’t ready to go back to work just yet). If you have the time and know your way around the Internet then this may be the right job for you. Internet marketing isn’t going anywhere, with the rate technology keeps expanding, from small hand held devices to hot spot Internet connections the World Wide Web is by far the ultimate marketing tool. With the current decline in the economy causing consumers to tighten their wallets; more companies are attempting to get their products out to as many customers as possible through the fastest means available, what a better place than through the Internet.

John Ditta
President
DittaMarketing