Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is a popular method of promoting goods and services on websites which are relevant to the topic of the website. However, whilst google adsense provides a relatively passive way of displaying adverts (where google automatically figures out what the site is about and displays relevant adverts) with affiliate marketing, the web publisher needs to set-up relevant links to affiliates that have a particular product or service to promote.
Take for example Broadband Providers. Broadband is a service that is very commonly sold on the internet – potential customers can view the details of the different broadband packages that are on offer, and can place an order online. So broadband providers are naturally interested in driving as much sales through their website as possible. To help them achieve their online sales, they enlist the help of other website owners by setting up an affiliate marketing program. The owner of a broadband related website (e.g. www.broadbandni.com) will register for the affiliate program and add the links to their site. So now when a visitor to broadbandni.com wants to find out more about a particular package listed on the site, they click on the affiliate link and are brought to the provider’s website. A special tracking code is used to track the visitor’s activities, and if they go on to purchase a broadband packages, the ‘sale’ is traced back to the owner of broadbandni.com and they are credited with a commission payment. Differnt affiliate programs will of course pay different amounts.
Affiliate marketing can work well for niche products, but it is also used for generic consumer products. For example, visit high-traffic sites such as Ireland.com and you are likely to be presented with an advertisement from an online betting agent. This is affiliate marketing at work.
Although some of the bigger players such as Amazon operate their own affiliate marketing programs, for most companies, the easiest option is to use a third party intermediary such as commissionjunction.com or tradedoubler.com. These sites are basically middlemen between website publishers and advertisers. Web publishers can sign-up and access details of all the different affiliate programs that the intermediary have in their inventory.
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