How does Affiliate Marketing work?

Affiliate Marketing is one of the hottest topics of the web these days ... but how does affiliate marketing work?

Sure, you've heard a lot about affiliate marketing and you may even know someone who makes money as an affiliate marketer, but you are still confused about how this stuff works!

OK, OK ... relaxation. I'm going to explain this stuff as easily as I can. Are you with me? OK, let's go ...

Affiliate Marketing is simply the art of selling products for a company. It 's like being a car salesman who works on commission, except as a car salesman - you can not sell just any car (in most cases). You stopped the sale of a specific brand (unless you sell used cars).

As an affiliate marketer, you will be given a special "link" (URL) that holds your "User ID" so that the company that provides the link you can track the sales of which have at their site ...

So, for example, your affiliate link would look like: [http://merchantsite.net/affiliates/a.php?aid=8732andp=239]

Now I could explain what it means to this link - but that could go too far and may confuse the subject at the end. In noticing the "aid = 8732"? This stands for "AffiliateID" (Affiliate Identification) and when a user clicks on this link - the number is given what is called a "click" to the database. The database (a simple text file that contains a lot of information that we do not really care right now ...) that the information is added to each click and save. And also (in most cases) saves the URL of the website that the click came from ... make sense?

We say that "Julie" click your link when it is "somesite.com", right? When it is clicked - the link says the site's database to save the clicks for statistical purposes, together with the reference page (somesite.com) so you can see exactly where the connection was made. This information (statistics), allows to better identify your "campaign" (we'll get to shortly).

I should explain the process in more detail. You may have heard of a "cookie" ... is not something you eat - a Cookie (online) is a small file that saves small pieces of information about you, the franchisee, as well as the user has clicked on the link. On the one hand - you save your Affiliate ID # (8732, for this tutorial) Julie's computer, for later use. Most cookies last from 30 minutes up to 30 years! The average is probably closer to 60 days, though. Most traders will tell you when cookies expire.

Now, what is Julie decides to buy a product from "merchantsite.net", a cookie is saved on your machine is accessible from the website and know that you were referring to the Affiliate. This means that the database knows that Affiliate ID # 8732 has just made a sale, and saves this information to the database so that the affiliate and the merchant you know exactly what is happening.

Then, the flow is something like this:

Julie clicks on the link -> website now places a cookie on your computer (your affiliate ID is not saved for later use) -> Julie decides that she likes a certain product and makes a purchase -> The Database saves the transaction points of sale and the receipt of your ID -> now you have made a sale.

This makes sense? I hope so!

In!

There are many affiliate programs that you can join. Commission Junction is a service that offers some of the worlds highest quality brands the ability to market its services affiliate marketing affiliate, World Wide. LinkShare and Shareasale are the same. There are also services such as ClickBank, as well.

When you subscribe to a service such as Commission Junction, you can apply to one of the brand names of these traders to become an affiliate. Companies like Yahoo! have great products to promote and give them some affiliates very attractive commission.

Come on some of the basics of affiliate "numbers" to help you better understand what they mean.

IMPRESSIONS = The number of times the link appeared on a page

CLICK = The number of times your link was actually clicked

CTR = Click Through Rate ... the number of times your link is clicked divided by the number of impressions.

Commission PROFIT = This is the total amount of money that you did

SALES = The number of sales you have made

Now, you will also see that some dealers provide "pay per lead" fees that are paid for every time someone signs a form through which the trader provides.

Most traders use a method of Pay Per Sale, where, of course, you get paid for every sale that you did. Some merchants pay a flat fee (eg $ 30.00 per sale), while some will pay you a percentage of total sales (eg 10% for the total sale).

So, let's pretend that Julie bought a product from $ 100.00 Merchant site that you are an affiliate with. Let's say the merchant pays you 15% of each sale ... guess what? Buy Julie just made you $ 15.00! Not bad.

I hope this article has explained the basics of affiliate marketing and how it works .......