Affiliate marketing may be defined as:
“Selling products of other people on the internet”
Affiliate Marketing is a simple but powerful concept. It is known as the easiest and the quickest way of earning on the net.
The basic concept of affiliate marketing is to sell the products of other companies on a commission basis, on the internet. The affiliate marketer receives a sales commission on every sale, from the merchant.
You need to follow these simple and easy steps to start earning as an affiliate marketer.
1. First of all you need to search a market which you think is the best to start with. Health, sports, clothing, computers, etc. are examples of some hot market areas for an affiliate marketer.
2. Register with some suitable affiliate program. Choose product(s) to sell. These products are called affiliate products.
3. For every product, you will receive a specific affiliate link. Now you need to promote your affiliate link to get more and more sales. The success of affiliate marketing depends on this step.
4. Finally, after selling the product, you will receive the affiliate commissions from the merchant.
How to Choose an Affiliate Product
Before choosing any product or market, the basic thing you should always remember is that you must have a complete knowledge about the demand and worth of the product. You should choose a product which has a big demand plus it is also more profitable. There are some products which are very demanding but they do not give a healthy profit. Some products carry both the qualities and are ideal for you to start with.
Promote Your Affiliate Link
After choosing the products, you will receive your affiliate links for each product. You can use many ways to promote your affiliate link. The most popular methods are websites, newsletters, emails, blogs, classified directories etc. You can use all these methods of promotion, at the same time, for best results. There are many other tools and methods to do this. The key point is how to drive the traffic that is really interested in what you are offering. If interested and serious, people will visit your website etc, thus being greater chances of sales.
When a visitor clicks on your affiliate link, visits the merchant's website and makes a purchase, you will receive your commission. So the number of sales directly depends on how many people see your affiliate link and visit the merchant website.
How Payments are made to Affiliate Marketers?
There are different ways of paying the commissions. You can get the commissions through checks (to any country of the world). If you have an online account, then you can be paid through PAYPAL as well. International wire transfer procedure is also used for this purpose. Different merchants offer different ways to transfer money. Usually commissions are paid on the start of every month after verifications.
What is the Benefit of being a Merchant?
Merchants, who want to sell products, have two options. The can sell their product on their own or choose to have affiliate marketers. The affiliate marketers will do a promotion of the products and sell the products for the merchant. If merchant chooses to sell the product through the affiliate marketers, it takes less effort and cost to promote the products. Now it becomes the duty of the affiliate marketers to promote the products. Greater are the number of affiliates, greater are the sales for the merchant.