Affiliate Marketing: Everything You Need to Know

Affiliate marketing is one of the online methods that have an important function to promote products or services, in addition to being a tool to be able to monetize the content of a web page or a blog.

But what is affiliate marketing?

It is a system of attracting customers through third parties who receive an economic remuneration for promoting the products or services of the company with which they have partnered. For this to be a win-win exchange, the right product and the right promotion channel for that service or product must be found.

The first representative example of this marketing method was through Jeff Bezos, founder of one of the most successful companies in the distribution and sale of products: Amazon. Through the development of a technique, he managed to link web pages that did not sell on Amazon.

Affiliate marketing is based on obtaining results in which an online store promotes its products through ads on pages and blogs of other people known as publishers through an affiliate program.

These affiliates have an audience or followers that allows companies looking for promotion to reach a greater number of potential customers than if they only did it through their website.

How is the scheme of this marketing system composed?

To carry out this type of promotion, 4 elements are needed:

• An advertiser: this is the one who wants to publicize their services or products.
• An affiliate is the one who has a promotion channel, either a blog or a page through which it will be responsible for promoting the advertiser.
• Affiliate program: this is the network through which both the advertiser and the Publisher are associated, is the one that offers its space in exchange for remuneration or commission, previously established by the advertiser.
• Consumer: it is the last link in the chain, as it will be the one who makes the purchase or contracting of the promoted services, through a link to the website that the affiliate has put on its page.
• Payments to affiliates are made based on the results obtained through a CPA model. These results are summarized in the purchases that consumers have made through the affiliate’s page, and not by the promotion that the affiliate has made.

How does the affiliate program process work?

• Through cookies, affiliate marketing tracks the information from the banners and links that have been inserted on the website, thus, this program can know when users or followers of the Publisher have visited the ads by storing browsing information (time, date, and content of the visit).
• When a user visits these links and places an order with the advertiser, these cookies collect the information and so affiliates can receive their commission.
• The idea of this marketing system is that as much as the advertiser and the affiliate win; because the one who offers his services expands, while the affiliate for carrying out the promotion obtains a profit.

But as in everything, there are advantages and disadvantages and then we will tell you.

Advantages and disadvantages for affiliates

Advantages

• Being an affiliate you do not need to have a stock of products or support of sales services. The only mission is to promote.
• Risks are minimal
• It offers the opportunity to join various affiliate programs, so you can have a wide portfolio of clients to promote them.

Want to learn more about becoming a marketing affiliate? Follow this link.

Disadvantages

• Being a promotional job, it is important that you know the product well and does not lose the credibility of your page or blog, so what you are promoting must be credible. So you also make sure you receive your commission.
• If you have a blog, you should make content to promote the service or product, which may represent more work.
• Commissions are low. On average, 4% to 10% of the price of the product is earned.

Advantages and disadvantages for advertisers

Advantages

• It is an effective tool to increase the audience that can become potential customers.
• The investment is minimal because although it requires the payment of a fee for its registration, it is a large advertising chain, and concerning commissions, they are only paid if the affiliate or Publisher through its channel makes a sale.
• The consumer makes the contract or buys directly on your page, so it becomes your customer. In this way, you collect the data and you can send him your newsletters and keep him informed of the promotions or new products that you have.

Disadvantages

• If you don’t know 100% of your Publisher’s activity, your brand may be affected.
• You do not maintain control over affiliates, as they may decline to sponsor you at any time they wish.
• There is no exclusivity. An affiliate can promote different brands and products at the same time.

So, is it worth turning to affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing can be a very good experience for both the advertiser and the affiliate, but you must work together in which both parties offer the best of themselves; the products and services must be of excellent quality and the promotion must have a page of excellent quality in which good content is offered so that the profits are for the benefit of both parties.

Need more ideas to implement this tool in your business? Read on here.

Would you like to use this system to increase your visibility and profits? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Originally published at https://tankstudiolab.com on September 23, 2021.