Affiliate Marketing - What, how and why?

Publicat de King Of The East | 08:52

Affiliate marketing is a way in which a manufacturer is willing to let the person or company (called
 affiliates) to promote her products or services, and for every sale made ​​or action (newsletter signup, download the brochure, etc.) Pay a fee . This marketing model has grown in recent years in the online world, although the idea is not new.
Those who have traveled abroad have probably noticed that the coach tours stop at certain stores strategically chosen. The reasons mentioned by the guides are linked to break revival, traditional objects shop, coffee break, etc.. In fact, it is an affiliate relationship between shop owners and drivers and guides, whereby the latter receive a commission for every purchase made by tourists.
This model has become very popular in the online world and because, unlike offline,monitor visitors and sales can be very precise, so the whole process is very efficient and transparent for both affiliates and vendors.

Why Does Affiliate Marketing

Simple: affiliate marketing benefits both those who sell (producers), but also to champion (affiliates). Here are some of these benefits.

Benefits for manufacturers

1. There is no risk
The main advantage that it has affiliate model is that manufacturers do not lose any money. If a company spends a certain amount of money on a promotion campaign, there is a risk that the campaign will not bring expected benefits, so cost is a loss. The affiliate model, this risk is fully transferred to affiliates.
2. Promotion and widely diverse
By using an affiliate program producers can diversify and expand its marketing efforts through gaining a large group of individuals or companies. Affiliates have access to a wide and diverse audience, may have promoting original ideas, contacts in different areas, so that, finally, the product has a broad and diversified exposure.
Some companies even choose to rely entirely on this model to promote and promote their efforts to reduce to a minimum. Of course, for this to work, you must have attractive fees, but big advantage is that the manufacturer can devote their full attention on product improvements and customer satisfaction.

Affiliate Benefits

1. No need to have their product
For those who have knowledge of marketing, the affiliate model is ideal because it requires time and money invested in their product development. Affiliates promote products that are developed and maintained by other companies.
2. Flexibility
A great advantage of affiliate model is that affiliates are not tied to a specific product, service or market. It may be promoted more products at the same time, in the same niche or different niches. This flexibility allows affiliates to experience a wide range of products, strategies or manufacturers to optimize their revenues.
3. Clientless
Affiliates are only intermediate sales. In other words, they should not bother with customer satisfaction, support, etc..

Patterns of affiliation

Affiliate marketing has four main forms, as detailed below.

CPS

CPS or Cost-Per-Sale is the most common form of affiliation. The manufacturer pays affiliates a commission when they bring a new client or generate a sale. Approximately 70% of online affiliate programs work on this model.

CPA

CPA or Cost-Per-Action is a model whereby the manufacturer pays a fee to affiliates send visitors to perform a task or action. For example, download a brochure, newsletter sign up, fill out a survey, etc.. This model is very profitable for affiliates so that visitors do not have to buy anything. Of course, the model presents a risk to the producer (it might not be able to convert shares made by visitors to sales), so it is used only 20% of affiliate programs.

CPC and CPM

A previous model is to pay affiliates based on the number of clicks sent to the vendor's Web site (CPC or Cost-Per-Click), or based on a number of ad impressions (CPM or Cost-Per -Mille). This model is somewhat expired because manufacturers do not offer any guarantees and benefits affiliates are quite small.

Multi-tier

The multi-tier affiliates earnings not only provide direct sales, but also from other affiliates who joined the affiliate program on the recommendation. For example, a manufacturer may have an affiliate program which wins 50% of direct sales and Selling completed 25% of sub-affiliates.

How it works

For those who are interested in becoming affiliates is important to understand the underlying technology affiliate programs. In short, when an affiliate is included in a particular program, it receives a unique URL that you must use when promoting products or services in the program. For example, if the site is www.xyz.com manufacturer, an affiliate URL could look like this: www.xyz.com/123.html or www.xyz.com/aff=123.
This unique URL management application allows affiliates to identify the affiliate that sends the visitor. If he buys the product then the application fee will be added accordingly in the affiliate account.
Besides identifying the affiliate according to the URL where the client comes, most of membership applications in browsers store cookies so even if visitors do not buy them from the first visit but after a certain time buy, its affiliate is commission paid his due.
As long as the cookie stays active? Depends on program and product, from 24 hours up to days 60-120.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing is a simple and efficient monetization of a blog, and understanding the functioning and benefits for both producers and affiliates is an important step for those interested.