What is affiliate marketing?

Subject: What is affiliate marketing? Wed May 20, 2009 10:17 pm

Qn: What is affiliate marketing?

Ans: It is a form of marketing online, similar to commission based salesmen in traditional businesses.

The parties involved:

-Affiliates are the commission based salesmen who other people's products.
-The people or companies that provide the products are called merchants.
-Affiliate networks are third parties who act as middle-men between the affiliates and the merchants.
-Of course, there is the customer.

The order of this is such:

1. Merchant put something for sale online, and informs the affiliate network.

2. Affiliates (the salesmen) go looking for things to sell, and finds the product the merchant is selling from the list on the affiliate network.

3. The affiliate thus "signs up" to sell the merchant's product, and is given a special hyperlink (called 'hop link') to link potential customers to the product.

4. The affiliate can now direct potential customers online with the special hyperlink/hop link, to the merchant's website, where the product is located.

5. When a customer buys the product from the merchant, the money is first collected by the affiliate network (the third party).

6. The affiliate network will then distribute the money. Part of it will go to the affiliate in the form of commission. Part of it will go to the merchant. Part of it, the affiliate network will keep (normally taking it out from the merchant's share) as a form of payment for its services. The merchant is the one who determines at the start the percentages of the shares.

That's basically it. It's a win-win situation for the affiliate, merchant, affiliate network and the customer (If he got a good deal).

Did this explanation help? If not, you can read up more by Googling it from here: www.affiliates4u.com