Affiliate Marketing

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is a technique in which an online merchant website pays affiliate websites a commission to send the buyer, traffic. In simple terms affiliates don’t deal with inventory, customer service, follow up or anything like that. they simply sell. The affiliate website shares their links to the merchant site and is paid according to the mutual agreement between them. This agreement can be based on the number of people visited, some particular action taken or someone buy’s something etc. Therefore, hiring affiliates is a brilliant way to sell products online and also it cheap and effective internet marketing strategy.

Merchant could try to go and find each individual website he wants to promote, try to setup a deal with them and then become their affiliate but that would take a lot of time. So, here comes the affiliate marketing.

There are at least three parties in affiliate marketing:

1.     The customer (who will buy)

2.     The affiliate site (where the merchant website link would be)

3.     The merchant site (where the action would be taken)

Brief overview how it works:

Affiliate Program Payment

• 1.       Pay per sale - Here the merchant pays an affiliate when the affiliate sends a user (customer) who purchases something.
• 2.       Pay per click – Here the merchant pays an affiliate based on the number of clicks coming to the merchant’s website. It doesn’t matter what that user performs on the website.
• 3.       Pay per lead – Here the merchant has to pay according to some planned action. Action can be information gathering, sign up form, feedback etc.

There can be number of arrangements which can be done according to the agreement between merchant and the affiliate.

Acquiring Affiliates

Affiliate network will help setting up an affiliate program and work to recruit affiliates. As an affiliate you have to fill out an application describing the nature of your business and website details. Thereafter affiliate has to agree to the terms of the affiliate network and make a deposit. This deposit include a onetime charge for a becoming a member, some affiliate networks also charge a yearly fee for their services and some are having their own rules and agreements.

The alternative of this is maintaining an affiliate program yourself. It is highly complicated as here we have to recruit affiliates, maintaining the program, purchasing some tracking technology and maintaining it, further we have to instruct the affiliates and monitoring them.  

Affiliate Linking Methods

An affiliate can link to the merchant in much number of ways. Few of them are mentioned below:

Text links: Just giving the text link in between the content. The advantage of text links in an affiliate program is they are hyperlinked in the content of website and so don't look so much like advertisements. For a lot of affiliate sites, this is the most natural way to link to the merchant site.

Banner links: Here the links are created on images or we can say some sort of graphic element. They may be the best choice when affiliate thinks a text link doesn't do enough to attract visitors.

Search box: This type of link allows visitors to search an online database on another site. The results of the search are links to other pages on the site.

There are several ways affiliate programs use these links:

Link to the home page: This is a straight-forward link to the merchant's home page. If an affiliate wants to introduce visitors to the merchant site in general, this is the best way to link.

Product-specific link: Here the product specific page is directly link. This makes things easier for the customer and simplifies the affiliate program process.

Registration: An affiliate can link directly to a registration form on the merchant site. If a visitor would have to register to use the merchant's Web site, this link is a good time-saver or merchant need’s some information.

There are n numbers of ways how the merchant link can be placed. Further placing the link depends upon the nature of the merchant and each link must suit’s the purpose.

Affiliate Program Networks

Affiliate networks act as mediators between affiliates and merchant Websites with affiliate programs. They track all activity, arrange all payment, and help affiliates set up the necessary links on their Web site. Additionally, affiliate networks help recruit affiliates by including an online merchant's affiliate program in their directory. Different affiliate networks offer different extra features, but most have a help-center and a place affiliates and merchants can go to view reports of their traffic.

Affiliate networks are a real convenience for prospective affiliates because they present a wide variety of affiliate programs in one central location. They make it much easier to find a good program that is appropriate for your site.

Affiliate networks charge fees for the above services.

Affiliate Program Technology

The URL for the page contains several pieces of information from where we can track, including:

•  1            an identification number for the affiliate
• 2            an identification number for the merchant
• 3            the URL of the merchant site

When you click on the link, the network site records a hit on that particular URL, which tells them what affiliate sent a visitor to that merchant. It then immediately sends the visitor to the actual merchant site.  But if you move your pointer over a merchant link on an affiliate site you will notice that the first part of the URL your browser displays is for the network site and not for the merchant.

The network tracks sales using Internet cookies containing these same identification numbers, so they know what affiliate referred the customer to the merchant

.

For ex

Merchant Name:  sulekha.com

Affiliate Name: freekamaal.com

There is a deal of hub port which is listed on freekamaal.com (affiliate website) and a when a user clicks on it; user will redirected to merchant website (sulekha.com) 

http://freekaamaal.com/2012/09/lowest-online-enter-hub-4-port-usb-2-0-e-4u2-worth-rs-450-at-rs-160/

http://deals.sulekha.com/enter-hub-4-port-usb-2-0-e-4u2-26240?affid=134054 (affiliate id)

Successful Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs work best when affiliates choose products, services and companies that match the content/theme of their Website and would interest their readers. If a content Website chooses affiliate programs well, everybody involved in the process wins.

Here the winning process can be

• ·         affiliate helps in selling the product to its visitor (increases the reliability),
• ·         the merchant win as he gets the sale or the desired action,
• ·         Customer wins as he gets product easily.  

Therefore to be in a winning process choose a program which suites the theme/content of your website, it should be easy to lead your user participate in them. If the merchant is having a business of clothing the link should be on fashion or clothing website.

Points to Ponder:

• ·         Know the Products You Are Marketing

·         Rank for the Right Keywords

 

(Be reminded that conversion rates in Affiliate Marketing are very low. You might get a high click-through if you have written an awesome review about the product, but out of 500 clicks, only one or two will convert into sales. So it is a numbers game. The higher the numbers, the better are your chances.)

 

 

Amazon

 

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com

 

Ebay

 

https://www.ebaypartnernetwork.com/files/hub/en-US/index.html

 

 

Ad Exchange Program:

Ad exchanges are technology platforms for buying and selling online ad impressions, and represent a field beyond ad networks as defined by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), and by advertising trade publications Advertising Age, iMediaConnection and ClickZ. An ad exchange is a marketplace that allows advertisers to bid on access to targeted ad inventory.

The exchanges

Currently, there are only a handful of “major” ad exchanges:
àAdBrite
àAdECN (Microsoft)
àContextWeb
àDoubleClick Ad Exchange (Google)
àRight Media (Yahoo… currently testing real-time bidding)

àMobclix for Mobiles

These media entities have direct deals with publishers, networks, or publisher tools to sell inventory on their open platforms. On its DoubleClick Ad Exchange, for example, Google has migrated inventory from its very successful AdSense program, which enables it to sell advertising this way on literally billions of web pages. Exchanges negotiate rates with the media providers and get paid to simply handle the transaction.