Affiliate Marketing , What Is It? Affiliate marketing is part of the large segment of online marketing. This is a kind of commission business, which is based on the principle of agency commission. Brokered prospects who become customers bring the broker – in this case you – a commission of the agreed amount. That can be a few percent or almost a third of the turnover generated.
How does affiliate marketing work?
How do you start affiliate marketing? For example, you usually run a website or blog. If there is a free area in the design, then this can be made into advertising space and made available to someone who is interested in it. Because many shop owners have a keen interest in advertising on the Internet. The blog operator who makes the reach of his website and his free advertising space available is called a “publisher” or “affiliate”. The advertiser, on the other hand, is called an “advertiser” or “merchant”.
For the advertising that is placed on the blog, a commission is paid in affiliate marketing as soon as the link is successful. This can be based on a wide variety of models:
- By clicking on the advertising material / cost per click (CPC)
- Contacting the customer / cost per lead (CPL)
- The sale / cost-per-order (CPO) or cost-per-sale (CPS)
In this video, Jessica Ebert explains exactly how affiliate marketing works and what it is.
The links that are set are usually identified by individual codes. In this way, the retailer’s sales system immediately recognizes from which affiliate the customer came to the website.
As a publisher, a commission statement may also be necessary. Many commission statement templates can be found online for this purpose .
Affiliate Marketing: Two Examples
According to Acronymmonster, one of the biggest users of affiliate marketing is the online retailer Amazon. He gives his partners the opportunity to directly promote articles related to the context. Articles and reports are published on the website that have been supplemented by these advertising materials, such as “Continue to this topic”. The visitor reads through the context and is given the taste to familiarize himself with the respective topic with a little offline reading, for example if it is a book.
But also providers of sporting goods give their affiliate partners the opportunity to integrate thematically sorted web shops directly into the website. For example, a website that deals with the subject of “diving” can offer a shop that offers exactly the right products. Here, the entire processing takes place directly via the affiliate provider and his partners then receive remuneration for the customer contact generated.
This picture shows a typical affiliate website as an example. The site operator offers useful information and product tests on a topic and makes a purchase recommendation for certain products. If you click on a link, you will be redirected to Amazon. For all sales that a customer makes on Amazon in the next 24 hours, the site operator now receives a commission as compensation. Here you can have a look at the affiliate website in detail: Fire bowl test
Advantages of affiliate marketing for users and providers
What does affiliate marketing mean for the internet? The special thing about affiliate marketing is that both parties benefit, i.e. the merchant and the affiliate. In this way, the affiliate receives a commission for his successful recommendation and the advertiser wins new customers that he might never have received without the recommendation of the affiliate.
Readers usually have an advantage because the content on the Internet can be financed in this way. Most users believe that free content should remain free. Affiliate Marketing can absorb the costs for the website and its authors here.
Affiliate Marketing Criticism
Some internet users turn up their noses when a blog they love to read tries to make money through affiliate marketing . People tend to forget that high-quality content is rarely available from entirely free authors. There are also costs for the operation and maintenance of a web server. Even if a provider provides the server: he would also like to see money for it. Readers should therefore consider whether they want to support the website operator by making a purchase through their affiliate marketing links.
These links should be clearly marked – a reminder to the website operator. Because if you lead your readers by the nose and try to redirect them “unnoticed” to a shop, they actually feel that they are being taken advantage of. In addition, the principle applies in Germany that advertising and editorial content must be clearly separated from one another. What is taken for granted in print media is unfortunately repeatedly disregarded by many website operators. There are even warning traps lurking here. So the following applies: Affiliate marketing works well if you stick to the rules of the game.
Affiliate Marketing: How do you partner?
In order for the affiliate to be rewarded for their recommendation, both business partners must first enter into a partnership. This usually works through an affiliate network. This means that the affiliate applies for a partnership with the merchant. If the application is accepted, the affiliate receives the advertising material. These are text links or advertising banners that the affiliate can include on their website, in emails or in social networks. These advertising materials contain personal and unique affiliate IDs. If the product is successfully recommended , the merchant can then use these IDs to determine who made the contact to him and to whom he has to pay the commission.
Some partners, especially the big players in the industry such as Apple, Amazon and Zalando, offer their own affiliate marketing programs. Partnerships with smaller web shops, which often offer a highly specialized range or are limited to only a few products, can be entered into via affiliate marketing platforms such as Zanox.
In general, affiliate marketing can be done with any niche.
Conclusion: Affiliate Marketing works!
Basically, affiliate marketing can be practiced in every imaginable niche. That means, as just described, you first have to enter into a partnership with a publisher in order to receive your commission. Amazon is a publisher that offers very good partner programs and if the application is accepted, then you can advertise the entire product range from Amazon and, as you know, there is simply everything on Amazon – from A to Z.
For niche blogs, it makes sense to identify suitable web shops that also operate affiliate marketing. Such partnerships are often the beginning of far-reaching cooperation. In contrast to Amazon, the smaller merchants often inform their few partners intensively about attractive offers or promotions – this in turn benefits the readers of the linked blogs. If you do it right, everyone benefits from affiliate marketing: publishers, merchants and readers / buyers.
