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Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a proven business model and can be described simply as a blueprint for a business. This article will describe how money is made in the affiliate marketing business model. It will describe where the profits are made and how profits are created.

Affiliate marketing has officially existed since 1994. Since that time, it has proven to be an outstanding business model in the online retail world.

Tens of thousands of affiliate marketers worldwide make their living online and more people are getting into the affiliate marketing business every day.

Affiliate marketing is based on referral marketing. Referral marketing is a very old business model. In this model, a company pays someone a commission when they sell one of their products.

In affiliate marketing, online retailers or merchants allow others outside their company to advertise their goods and services on their websites. The merchant then pays a commission when their visitors buy one of the products through their websites.

Here's an example of an affiliate and merchant relationship and the way the referrals and commissions work:

Mark loves astronomy. He has been interested in observing the stars since he was 9 years old. It's something that he loves teaching others about. So, Mark starts a website about astronomy.

On it, he posts star maps, gives tips and advice about setting up telescopes and tells his readers about the products that he likes to use - from star tracking software and telescope accessories to star photography.

Mark becomes an affiliate for an online retailer of telescope products. On Mark's site, he recommends star gazing with an Orion Telescope. In his instructions, he tells his readers how to set the telescope up and the exact settings that he uses to get a perfect photograph of the Moon.

Mark links to the Oriontelescopes.com website and lets his readers know that they can buy that particular telescope there.

When his visitors click on the link and buy the telescope - Joe earns a commission.

 

What is an "Affiliate Program?

When you join a merchant’s affiliate program, you are going to promote the merchant's products or services online on your website.

An affiliate 'program' is a back office setup that manages and tracks the sales from a company's affiliates who make online sales for them. It will keep track of your commissions for you and pay you when appropriate.

So how can you join an affiliate program? It's easy. Usually you fill out a form and agree to the affiliate agreement. This agreement identifies and explains the legal arrangement that dictates how and when the merchant will pay you, what constitutes a valid sale, what you can and can't do when selling the product, and much more. You might hear other names for the affiliate relationship business model. Here are a few you might recognize:

Associate Program Referral Program Partner Program Bounty Program Revenue Sharing Program

These are other terms for affiliate program

Who Are "Affiliates?"

People can make money by promoting for merchants. They are affiliates. If you try this method of making money online, you can call yourself an affiliate marketer.

Affiliate marketers often make much more than you would expect if they are familiar with how to promote products on their websites using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) methods and can really expand their income once they have mastered the art of pay per click marketing.

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