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Understanding Affiliate ProgramsCopyright 2004 Sharon HousleyAffiliate programs are commonly misunderstood, in order to understand affiliate programs lets start with terminology. For clarification purposes, an affiliate is defined as any "referrer" or website that promotes a product in an effort to earn revenue. A merchant is defined as someone who owns a product and is sharing revenues with an affiliate based on the affiliate's performance. Affiliate programs can drive targeted traffic to your website. There are 3 basic affiliate programs, though only the first two are commonly used. Pay Per Click - this is when an affiliate is compensated for sending traffic to the merchant. (AdSense is an example of PPC affiliate program) Pay Per Sale - this is when the affiliate is compensated by the merchant if the referral generates a sale or purchase. Pay Per Lead - this is when the merchant agrees to pay for a qualified (or sometimes unqualified lead), which is very uncommon because it is subjective and up to the merchant. Affiliate websites tend to provide information, entertainment, and content services to their customers. The online merchants sell products, goods and services online. These are programs permitting affiliates to earn money based on the visitors to your site who click through to another's website. Some pay a token amount for the click through and others provide a percentage of sales when a visitor "clicks through" to your site and buys a product or service on the other party's site. This could represent a value added service to your visitors. Affiliate programs allow you to pay and track incentives from other websites that send web surfers, leads or paying customers to your website. Commissions based on purchases made by traffic sent from the referring website can be paid. Besides a commission, an affiliate can receive a flat fee, or other incentives for all valid transactions it refers that generate a sale or lead. Be careful that the affiliate's web page is not cluttered with banner ads that may crowd out your link, or that be annoying to customers. Affiliate programs enable affiliates to leverage their traffic and customer base in order to profit from e-commerce while merchants benefit from increased exposure and sales. Commonly traffic to merchant sites is measured and affiliates can clearly see conversion rates. Meaning, they track the percentage of people they are referring, and how much of it results in earned revenue. If the affiliate finds a very low conversion, they will find a better way to monetize that traffic, quite possibly with a competing merchant product. In order to be a successful affiliate, the affiliate site needs to either have tons of traffic or target a specific audience, frequently one untapped by the merchant. It has been my experience, the closer the affiliate site content resembles the merchant products, the higher the likelihood of a good conversion rate. Once you are committed to the idea of affiliates, the next step is to determine the kind of tracking system you are going to use. Sales can be tracked by HTML code, which is placed in a shopping cart or on the 'order confirmation'/'thank you' page, and cookies, which are created after the customers click on a banner ad. Cookie killers have been a problem for the affiliate industry. Software vendors have an advantage over other merchants in that new technologies allow software developers to better control compensation. Vendors can 'wrap' their software insuring that their affiliates are compensated for referrals, even if the customer downloads a trial version prior to purchasing. Buy now buttons in the software have affiliate ids imbedded in the download. Combined tracking systems have more success than those that rely on a single tracking technology. In order to develop a successful affiliate network, merchants must realize that affiliates spend ad dollars on site, and product promotion. If the affiliate is not compensated fairly they will not remain in the merchants network. The bottom line is that affiliate relationships are partnerships, when both sides feel the situation is fair and equitable the relationship will be a success. About the author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.neta company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.feedforall.com, http://www.softwaremarketingresource.comand http://www.small-business-software.net Circulated by Article Emporium What Exactly is Spam? Spam, as defined in the context of computers, the Internet and electronic messaging, is a term used to designate unsolicited bulk electronic messaging and communication. In particular, spam is unsolicited bulk mailings that are commercially oriented. It is most commonly used in adv... Can You Really Earn MONEY As An Affiliate? Copyright 2005 Jugglingmum The answer is a most definite yes! After researching the topic of Affiliate Marketing for a few months (I like to be thorough!) I decided to run a little test and see if I could earn some real money – not pennies. I used strategies that to... The No #1 Reason Why People “Getting Started” In Internet Marketing Are Getting It Wrong. Copyright 2005 Jo Han Mok It's tragic. Statistical data from survey results have shown that the No #1 problem that people face in Internet Marketing is “getting started”. And what's really sad about this is that the people who are actually “getting started”... My 7-Step Secret Formula For Cashing In On Content! Copyright 2005 Kurma Group Content, content, content - everybody's talking about it! Are you lucky enough to have a ton of content - maybe from an ezine you've been publishing for years? Then realize this: there's a right and a wrong way to put content online. The wr... Send Your Website An INSTANT 'Surge' Of FREE Targeted Traffic Using "T.O.D." Copyright 2005 The IWE, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Traffic... the life blood of every online business. The problem is, are you getting enough of it to make your online business grow to your expectations within the time period you have set? In my mind you can nev... Advertising DOs and DONTs Copyright 2004 Mal Keenan From early on in my online career I realised that the fastest way to internet riches was to find a marketing concept that brought me profits and plough as much as I could into that resource, thus building my business and capital as I went. Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley In order to determine which advertising and marketing efforts are effective you must have ways to measure the results of those efforts. Alerts and instant notifications can be instrumental in monitoring search engine position, trademarked terms,... What’s The Best Network Marketing Opportunity For You? Are you looking for a good network marketing opportunity? Want to tap into the secrets of Internet billionaires? Wish to be a top revenue maker? Then you should follow in the footsteps of successful marketers, and do what they do – find a network marketing opportunity that feels ... Understanding Affiliate Programs Copyright 2004 Sharon Housley Affiliate programs are commonly misunderstood, in order to understand affiliate programs lets start with terminology. For clarification purposes, an affiliate is defined as any "referrer" or website that promotes a product in an effort to earn r... Hard work. MAKE A MILLION $ PER MONTH. No work involved. Do it whilst sitting on the beach at Maliboo. This may sound a bit extreme but how many adverts have you seen that are similar to it? The trouble is that so many newcomers to the interne... 3 Steps to Creating Your Own Ezine to Increase Web Site Traffic! 3 Steps to Creating Your Own Ezine to Increase Web Site Traffic! - Mark Williams © What if I showed you a simple way to increase web site traffic that could sky-rocket your sales and make you an internet expert. Would you be interested? I sure ho... How To Indirectly Get To The Top Of Search Engines Copyright 2005 Ronald Gibson There are millions of web sites trying to get listed in the top 20 spots of the major search engines. That amounts to a lot of competition! Even if your website can't get in the Top 20, you can use indirect ways to get it there. How do yo... 10 Totally Easy Ways To Increase Your Sales Now Increasing your sales doesn't have to be hard or require a large investment of money or time from you.It can be as easy as making a phone call or writing a note to a business associate. Here are some totally easy ways that you can use to start increasing your sales today. ... What Size Body Section Ranks Highest? Copyright 2004 Jon Ricerca This is another one of the controversial questions in many of the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) forums, yet it is very easy to answer for any particular search engine. While popular belief seems to be that pages should be very short (less than 1... The Home Business University That Changed My Life Copyright 2005 Gobala Krishnan During my first 2 years as a struggling home business entrepreneur dreaming of making big money and leading a free lifestyle, I made many mistakes. Some of those mistakes cost me money. Others caused me heartache, and a few almost completely de...
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