What is Affiliate Marketing?

I think now is a really great time to talk about what affiliate marketing is as I have mentioned this type of online business in a number of articles.  Affiliate marketing is a method of marketing products or services that essentially involves referring new clients and customers to other businesses.  The referrer or affiliate makes a commission as a result of a sale or referral depending on the nature of the affiliate program.

Affiliate programs can vary.  You make a commission when:

• a sale is made
• generate a lead

Types Of Affiliate Marketing

There are many different types of affiliate marketing out there, but for the purpose of this article, I am going to explain the three main types you will come across.

Third Party Affiliate

This is where you join an affiliate program through a third party company such as Clickbank, Linkshare or Commission Junction.  These company’s manage the affiliate program on behalf of the vendor.

For example:  I have written an ebook and want to sell it through Clickbank.  Molly joins Clickbank and wants to be an affiliate for my ebook.  Molly promotes by ebook through her unique affiliate link, when someone purchases my ebook through her link, Clickbank will pay Molly a commission for that sale.

Pay Per Lead Affiliate

This type of affiliate marketing is often used by companies such as morgage brokers and insurance companies, who look to generate quality leads for their products or services.  This involves attracting the right types of customers to a page and they complete a form with their details.  Their information then goes directly to the vendor and they pay the affiliate for the lead.

Direct Affiliate Programs

These involve selling a product or service for a vendor directly – known as a stand alone affiliate program.  This type of affiliate program is not managed by a third party vendor.  When you generate the sale, using your unique affiliate link, the vendor will pay you the commission directly.

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

• Minimal outlay to get started
• No stock needs to be held
• Do not need to produce product
• You don’t need to worry about shipping or delivering a service
• Can run your business from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection
• Can use it to supplement your income for an existing business

How Do I Get Started In Affiliate Marketing?

The basic steps to starting an affiliate marketing business is to:

1. Choose a niche’
2. Research affiliate programs
3. Build a website
4. Produce excellent content
5. Build an audience
6. Promote affiliate offers

This might all sound overwhelming and it can be, especially to newbies.  Don’t be discouraged, take a deep breath, now affiliate marketing does take work, but with the right resources, support and action, the world will be your oyster.  But the beauty of building an affiliate marketing business the way I have learn’t and am about to share with you, is that you do the work once, tweak it here and there as required and let your website do the rest for you.  Sound like something that you would like to do?  Well lets get going!

Any Recommendations??

I started working online in 2012.  I have been in many different programs and there is one out of them all that I have found has suited me the best – Wealthy Affiliate.  I am not going to go into the ins and outs of Wealthy Affiliate here in this post as the purpose of this post was to introduce you to affiliate marketing in general, but I will direct you to Why Wealthy Affiliate Is My Choice, which will give you insight, into why I recommend this community to others when they are looking to build an online business or delve into affiliate marketing.  You can also check out my Wealthy Affiliate review which will give you a good overview of what that community has to offer.

I hope you have found the information in this article inspiring and helpful.  If I can be of any assistance, please leave a comment below.  Thank you for visiting Over Fifties Affiliate and I look forward to seeing you here again soon.