If you just came across the term "Affiliate Marketing" and are curious to know what it is or if you want to pursue this as a part-time job, you have come to the right place. To broaden your idea and knowledge about this marketing strategy, we have answered all the questions for which you’re seeking answers.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
In affiliate marketing, a company pays the commission to another source for promoting and endorsing their products on their platforms to the world. An affiliate marketer joins affiliate program through a source, and find products that interest them or those they wouldn’t mind promoting and share them with people far and wide generally online.
Affiliate marketing is a product marketing in which the job of promoting and getting the word out is spread among multiple parties. An affiliate marketer can earn hundreds of dollars or more of commission in a month depending upon their performance.
How does Affiliate Marketing work?
Affiliate Marketing is a hassle-free way to sell a product and earn handsome income online without dealing with the criticism. Many believe that working as an affiliate can be an on and off job, but that’s not the case. Affiliate partnerships are built on transparency and authenticity. The key focus is to assist both the merchant and the affiliate in the best possible way with a well-managed establishment and strategy.
4 Parts of Affiliate Marketing
Four parties get involved in getting the affiliate marketing running; each holds great importance and relationship with each other to ensure success in the business. The four compounds are as follows:
- Merchant: The merchant is the seller, the retailer or the company that creates or sells a service or a product. These people keep an eye out for content creators or affiliates who would promote and endorse the products on their platforms.
- Affiliate: The affiliate may be an individual or a group of people working for an organization. They are the publishers, the advertisers or even bloggers that allures the potential customer or consumers towards the sale. An affiliate generally has a particular audience that they target for persuasion and purchases.
- Consumer: The consumers and their purchases drive the entire affiliate marketing all in all. They get to know about the product and its benefits through an affiliate’s social media, blog or a website and without their purchases there will be no commissions or revenue for either the affiliate or the merchant.
- Network: Even though many don’t consider it a part of the marketing, it is a core key since network connects the affiliate and the merchant. These networks manage the relationship and keep check and balances of the insights of the report, tracks and payments.
Commission Types of Affiliate Marketing
In this type of marketing, the affiliates get paid for their performance. The three types of performance-based models common to affiliate marketing are discussed below:
Pay Per Click (PPC): In this, an affiliate will get paid even when the viewer makes no sales. The affiliate receives a commission each time a viewer clicked on the link and directed to the merchants account through their platform.
Pay Per Lead (PPL): An affiliate often gets a fixed commission with every engagement that the consumer makes with the merchant’s product or site. It can be anything from installation of the application, signing up, filling out a form etc.
Pay Per Sale (PPS): The affiliate and the merchant break an agreement on mutual understanding. In this, the companies or the merchant pay a fixed percentage of the sales made through affiliate’s lead to the affiliate.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Being an Affiliate Marketer
Advantages
- It makes your dream of earning while being at home. You just have to devote some hours of your day to a campaign and sit back and earn.
- You do not have to worry about the feedbacks or customer satisfaction since your work is only to direct the potential customers to the product.
- It’s a freelancing job you don’t have to get ready and leave early in the morning to spend time at your office. You can sit back in your lounge comfortably and work from home
- A startup requires a fair amount of investment, with affiliate marketing you won’t have to put in a large amount, and you get to start quicker.
Disadvantages
- An office-based job or business does promise a steady income, unlike affiliate marketing, since this is entirely based on your performance.
- The amount you earn in a month is solely based on your performance, hence, you do not earn, if you don’t put in any effort.
- Not all businesses have an affiliate marketing program running. Only a portion of the market actively contributes towards this kind of marketing scheme.
