Affiliate marketing been around for a long time, it’s just a new twist on an old concept – commission-based sales. Basically, it is a partnership between a merchant and a salesperson where the merchant rewards the salesperson, or affiliate, based on their specific performance – usually a sale, but in today’s market it can be in some cases for leads or website traffic.
Amazon.com was the first company on the internet to mainstream the affiliate marketing system, offering Amazon “associates” the opportunity to receive a commission for each book they sold for the company. Since then, thousands of companies have created their own affiliate programs which are based on the same principal, encouraging online publishers and salespeople to earn commissions through their partnerships.
There are many publishing and sales professionals who are successful affiliate marketers, but they are certainly not the only people participating in the affiliate market industry. There are also many “amateur” affiliates – people who build a website, create an online newsletter, or in some cases simply email their friends and recommend a product or service. In general this is much like recommending a particular brand or store to a friend – except that if somebody follows the affiliate’s advice, the affiliate is rewarded for it.
There are a number of different strategies and techniques when it comes to affiliate marketing, from building entire online storefronts offering the affiliate merchant’s products, adding advertisement to an existing website in one form or another, to a very simple technique of making a recommendation in an email and including a special affiliate link that ensures that the merchant will credit the affiliate for it.
Affiliate marketing is constantly growing, as new merchants discover the great potential and benefit of increasing their sales force by forming partnerships with online publishers. Merchants whose products or services may appeal to a particular niche market find this to be especially true. What better way to become established within that niche market than by working with companies and individuals who are already part of that market and know it the best?
