In this ever-expanding internet age, one of the most effective ways for companies to increase brand awareness is through affiliate marketing. To put it in the simplest terms, affiliate marketing involves a company “recruiting” other companies or individuals to market their products and services for a commission. Under this definition there are two different forms of affiliate marketing:
- The first is when a person or business offers an affiliate program to others. The ultimate goal in this kind of marketing is to utilize the power of exponential networking to drive sales leads to the company’s website.
- The second is when a company or individual signs up as the affiliate for another business. The goal of becoming an affiliate is to capitalize on one’s own ability to drive traffic to the company offering the affiliate program, with the goal of making a sale. Affiliates are then paid a commission for each lead and/or sale they bring to the website.
Affiliate marketing works differently and more effectively than other kinds of marketing because companies are able to reach untapped markets that the company may not have otherwise been able to draw to their website. Most affiliate programs have come to utilize revenue sharing or pay per sale as a method of compensation. Other methods like pay-per-click were popular in years past but have become obsolete mostly because of various forms of fraud that were involved in their implementation. Most people who participate in affiliate marketing enjoy the work because there is no time or effort investment involved in selling a product. The product already exists so for affiliates it is just a matter of finding creative ways to market that product to a particular market or social or business network.
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