Affiliate marketing is a practice in the marketing field wherein a retailer rewards affiliates for every customer or visitor brought as a potential customer for the retailer. All efforts at gaining a potential customer is the responsibility of an affiliate so you can say that a retailer is simply paying the affiliate for the effort that he’s given into getting customers for the retailer. The issue of payment though varies depending on the affiliate marketing program in effect. Some programs pay instant commissions via your PayPal account, while others require you to wait for weekly or monthly payments.
With instant commission affiliate programs, payments alternate between the retailer and the affiliate, so you never have to wait for the ‘check in the mail’.
It may also be possible for an affiliate marketing program to involve more than just the affiliate and the retailer, with affiliate management agencies coming into play. With the use of affiliate management agencies, the retailer needs only to work with the agency and the agency will be in charge of dealing with affiliates for the retailer. An affiliate marketing agency is quite the convenience to have if you’re a retailer but you may end up earning less compared to working directly with a retailer if you are an affiliate. An example affiliate management agency is Cj.com
In many ways, affiliate marketing and internet marketing tactics overlap. Affiliates are free to use whatever methods they feel will work in order to promote a retailer. A lot of the methods that affiliates end up using are used by internet marketing as well that’s why overlaps happen. If you must compare the efforts of affiliates with that of internet marketers though, you can say that the former takes on a much lower profile in promoting a certain product or service offered by a retailer.
Affiliate marketing is simple enough, so becoming an affiliate should be no trouble at all. The key is the right training, and knowing which products or services to promote in advance. Got a blog? That’s one of the ways by which you can take advantage of becoming an affiliate and start earning instant commissions.
Action Step:
Click here for a WordPress plugin that will help you earn instant commissions, I highly recommend it.
[wpcommissions]
