How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Great question! Many people particularly newbies keep asking this question. Many of the questions are concerned mostly about online affiliate marketing even though affiliate marketing can be done offline as well. The real reason for this curiosity is because of the internet which allows many affiliate marketers to leverage easily on web technologies. To do affiliate marketing, first you need a merchant or a company that offers affiliate marketing opportunity or an affiliate marketing program. Next step is to signup directly with the merchants or with an Affiliate Network which may have hundreds of programs to join, making it easy to find affiliate marketing opportunities to your heart’s desire. An affiliate network acts practically like a middleman between merchants and affiliate marketers. They offer tracking software that tracks your sales and reports your sales and performance. They also handle payments for and on behalf of marketers.

Here now is the real business. When you sign-up to an affiliate program, you are provided with promotional material which includes a link and / or banner and links. Your job as an affiliate marketer is to promote these links and banners using your blog, social media pages, or online advertising. These affiliate links lead to the merchant website and come with a tracking code that monitors whether or not the lead buys a product from the merchant. When a person clicks on your promoted link, a signal is sent to your affiliate program’s server notifying them of the referred visit by means of a specialized cookie which chalks up the counter of your referrals. Depending on the merchants, you can get paid-per-visit, PPV or paid-per-click, PPC depending on what the cookies record in your favor. That is how Affiliate marketers get to make their money. Simple business no doubt!