What Type of Business Model is Affiliate Marketing?

Simply put, an affiliate marketer is an online salesperson who promotes products in exchange for a commission. It is an online business model where you are paid commission for promoting other peoples’ products and services. In the business, the people promoting the goods and services are called affiliates while the people who have a product affiliates can promote to earn a commission are known as merchants. Of course, the people who buy the products are invariably called customers.

In that type of business model, the affiliate is expected to do just 3 routine things:

Promote products

Gets paid for every sale you generate

Repeat the two processes over and over
 
Simple no doubt! If as a marketer you are able to do these things repeatedly, there is no upper limit to how much you can earn as an affiliate marketer. The harder and better you work, the more you earn, simple! So, how much you earn depends entirely on you. This simplicity makes affiliate marketing one of the most popular home-based businesses around. If you are keen, you can start your own affiliate marketing business right now in your room, making hundreds of dollars any time from now. This model stands out as one of the simplest ways to start a home-based business even without formal training or experience.

Therefore, anyone can start affiliate marketing and make money. There are no financial risks involved. You needn’t pay anything to promote an affiliate product. If the product does not convert well, you are always free to switch to any other products you want. Even if you may not need to have prior experience at selling, you must however be willing to commit to a learning process if you want to succeed fast enough in the business.

As an added advantage, you do not have to design, develop or manufacture any products yourself. It is the sole business of affiliate merchants to design and produce their own products and promotion materials like images, banners, product links etc. The only job you have as an affiliate marketer is to simply promote the products using the materials such as banners and product links as supplied by the merchants. There is a lot of money to be made in the business and that can not elude you even if you are a newbie.