What is Affiliate Marketing?

January 12, 2008 by Jon
Filed under Definitions

I’ve had a lot of friends and family asking me about my affiliate marketing business. They don’t know what it is, how it works, or how to get into it. Wikipedia has a good explanation of it, but in a nutshell, affiliate marketing is a way merchants “market” their products through “affiliates.” The idea is simple… an affiliate promotes the products and services sold by the merchant. If the affiliate can get someone to buy the product or service through the marketing efforts of the affiliate, the merchant will pay the affiliate a commission of the sale.

Here is an example: Amazon has an affiliate marketing program that I’m a member of. Let’s say I put up a web site that lists the best science fiction books, and each book is linked back to Amazon. If someone comes to my web site and clicks to buy one of the books, they go to Amazon’s web site and buy the book. Amazon knows the click came from me, and will give me 4% of the purchase price.

This is great for merchants, because they’re only paying what is essentially marketing costs, but only for sales. So every dollar spent by merchants on affiliate marketing comes from successful sales, which is 100% ROI for the merchants.

This is also great for affiliates, because it is a unique income opportunity. It can be a full-time job, a part-time job, or even just a one hour a week job.

Affiliate marketing sounds simple, but it unfortunately isn’t. Many people try affiliate marketing, and most give up without ever having success. It’s a hard nut to crack, but it can be cracked, and those that figure it out can make very lucrative incomes.

It’s my hope in this blog to explain the tools, resources, strategies, and tactics I use in my affiliate marketing efforts. By reading about my successes and failures, what works for me and what doesn’t, hopefully you will be informed and inspired towards your own affiliate marketing successes.

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