Affiliate Marketing
What is affiliate marketing?
It's very simple: companies pay you to advertise their products and only pay you when your advertising results in a sale for them. It's a no-brainer for the company, really, and it should be on every company's business plan to start an affiliate program at some point.
Affiliate programs are almost always (and should be!) free to join.
Affiliate programs use cookies to track those people who have clicked on links in your website or emails to get to the advertised website or products. Customers don't have to purchase right then and there in order for you to earn a commission. Every affiliate program varies in how long they will track each customer's cookies, but the typical time is 30 days. Some will even track for one year or even three years!
Starting to sound complicated? It just means this: Let's say you advertise a book that is carried by Amazon that you think is top notch. Jim-Bob visits your website and sees this ad and thinks, "Hmm. That book looks interesting." and clicks on your link, which takes him over to that Amazon sales page, showing the book. Jim-Bob likes what he sees but for whatever reason is not ready to buy that day. Then, he comes back 28 days later to Amazon. He buys the book. Well, Amazon uses some tracking technology that knows that Jim-Bob found that book on Amazon thanks to you. So, Amazon pays you 7% of the sale. (If I remember correctly, I think it is actually 3%, which is far lower than average.) That's the gist!
Every affiliate receives their own code that is generated by the tracking software. After your earnings accumulate to a set amount (you often get to choose), you will either receive a cheque or receive funds to your PayPal account. Each tracking company works differently.
Some affiliate programs have their own tracking software and unfortunately, not all software tracks with equal accuracy.
(To learn how to become an affiliate master, check out The Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner. She is a fellow Canuck who operates a couple of websites that simply review other websites and products having to do with dating and such, like www.sage-hearts.com and she is making over $400,000 USD a year doing so! There is a wealth of terrific hints and explanations within this book and at a very low price. Your purchase is guaranteed.)
Where do you find affiliate programs to join?
Some websites allow you to join their affiliate program on their own pages, while others require you to create an account with a large tracking company first and then apply to their program through that tracking company.
Usually, if you scroll to the bottom of a website, you'll see a little "Affiliates" link, or sometimes "Resellers" or "Partners". It usually says "Affiliates" and I wish that every site would just say this as "Resellers" and "Partners" usually mean different things and how is being ambiguous to someone's benefit? Alas, I digress...
Here are some places where you can find affiliate programs. If you join these companies (free), you can then search for companies' affiliate programs by searching a subject, like "baby", or "business".
Some companies will accept any affiliate and you'll be automatically approved and be able to start integrating your affiliate link within your website immediately. Other companies will approve your application manually.
Commission Junction- you can join many different affiliate programs through CJ at once, like Gap's, eBay's and many more. There is a slight learning curve with finding your way around their site. Also, being Canadian, I found the sign-up forms a little confusing, unsure of what parts I had to fill out and which I could leave blank because they didn't apply to me. In fact, I didn't even think that I had done it successfully but it is working.
Share-a-Sale- a large variety of programs are found here with many different categories. Some will approve you right away and some do it manually. It is pretty straightforward. Wasn't difficult to join.
ClixGalore- again, you can join many different affliliate programs and it seems that ClixGalore requires the participating companies to approve every applicant because every program that I have joined there has been met with immediate approval. HTML linking codes are generated instantly. Easy to join.
ClickBank- the easiest link generator for affiliates to use. You choose your own nickname and then for every link you create for products advertised in ClickBanks, you just copy the code and insert your nickname within. No need to wait for approvals. ClickBanks is only for downloadable products, as far as I understand.
LinkShare- a hassle to join, BUT has many big companies within, like Target, The Body Shop, Walmart, Petsmart, and many more. The companies within must approve your application.
Refer It- this is a directory that has a fair-sized selection of categories from which to choose. You could list your own affiliate program on here, if you have your own affiliate program that you manage yourself.
Associate Programs- this is another directory, very large (it even has a category for "condoms"!) assembled by a well-known affiliate marketing expert. There's plenty of great articles on his website.
Affiliates Directory- this site says they are the largest directory for affiliate programs and they have many 2-tiered programs, which, all you need to know right now, means that you make more money than with an average affiliate program.
Who should get involved with affiliate marketing?
Anyone who has a website can and should. It doesn't mean that you will have banners flashing throughout your site. That is not necessary. You don't even need to do it as a main source of income. But if you have a blog or e-commerce site, you can easily integrate just a couple of relevant affiliate links within.
Let's say that you sell children's books. Well, you know that your market is comprised mostly of parents, probably moms, right? So, you could advertise other educational products, children's art, children's dvds, etc. Just visit the companies above and search their directory for products related to yours.
Once you join some programs, you can even look for products that are irrelevant to your website but that your friends might like and apply to those programs. Then, email your friends telling them to check out this cool new wizzam or whatever. They won't know that you are advertising to them and so there is no pressure to buy. But if they DO buy, yea for you! Your friend says "thanks" for showing her something cool that you found and is glad that you were thinking of her and you make some money to buy more chocolate. More power to you!
Good luck!!
