Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as ‘retailer’ or ‘brand’), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as ‘the affiliate’), and the customer.” Weinberg and Mares in their book Traction defines an affiliate program as an arrangement where you pay people or companies for performing certain actions (like making a sale or getting a qualified lead). Companies like Amazon, Zappos, eBay, Orbitz, and Netflix use affiliate programs to drive significant portions of their revenue. In fact, affiliate programs are the main traction channel for many ecommerce stores, info products and membership programs. To illustrate this area in their Traction book Weinberg and Mares interviewed Kris Jones, who grew Pepperjam to become the fourth largest affiliate network in the world. At one point, they had a single advertiser generating $50 million annually through their network. Value of Affiliate Programs “Whether you’re the brand manager at a Fortune 100 brand or the marketing director/everything else at a startup, setting up a solid affiliate program can open a revenue avenue without much of the hassle usually associated with setting up new marketing initiatives.” says Steve Olenski on Forbes blog.
- An affiliate program is only going to help bring traffic to your website or business; you are in charge of turning that traffic into conversions.
- Affiliate Program Strategy give the ability to use affiliate programs effectively but, it depends how much you are willing to pay out to acquire a customer. After all, with this channel you are paying out of pocket for the lead or sale.
- According to eMarketer, 46% of marketers consider affiliate marketing to be “very cost effective” as it relates to customer acquisition, second only to email.
- You only pay for results – unlike traditional advertising methods, affiliate marketing is the most cost effective one. If your affiliates don’t perform and bring leads, they simply don’t get paid.
- You don’t spend time on advertising – let others do the work for you so you can worry about other, more important issues, or focus on other skills. You don’t need to be a marketing expert or have to learn any marketing methods to run an affiliate program. Simply setup your affiliate program and then payout your affiliates once a month. That’s where your job ends.
- Get lots of traffic and improved SEO – lots of affiliates generate helpful of backlinks.
- Find Super affiliates and you’re golden – you don’t need hundreds of affiliates to succesfully run an affiliate program. In general, most of businesses have 3-5 Super affiliates who generate more than 50% of the revenue from their whole affiliate program.
- Advertiser can be a company selling a product like electronics, airline tickets, clothing or car parts, or an advertiser could also be an insurance company selling policies. The most important thing to remember is that you are an advertiser if you are ready to pay other people to help you sell and promote your business.
- Publisher is an individual or company that promotes an advertiser’s product or service in exchange for earning a commission. Advertisers contractually agree to work with a publisher, then provide the publisher with creative – in the form of links, banner or text ads or even unique phone numbers – that the publisher incorporates into their website.
- Consumer is the one who actually sees the ad and then makes an action (either by clicking a link or by submitting their information via a form) that takes them from the publisher’s website to the advertiser’s to complete the action, which we call a conversion.
- Coupon/ Deal sites These sites (e.g. RetailMeNot, CouponCabin, BradsDeals, Slickdeals) offer discounts to visitors and take a cut of any sale that occurs.
- Loyalty programs Companies like Upromise and Ebates have reward programs that offer cash back on purchases made through their partner networks.
- Aggregators These sites (e.g. Nextag, PriceGrabber) aggregate products from retailers.
- Email lists Many affiliates have large email lists they will recommend products to, and take a cut when subscribers make purchases.
- Vertical sites There are hundreds of thousands of sites (including individual blogs) that have amassed significant audiences geared towards a vertical (e.g. parenting, sports, electronics, etc.).
- Clickbank is by far the largest affiliate network for information products is , where affiliate commissions often reach 75%. ClickBank has over 100,000 affiliates and millions of products.
- Rakuten LinkShare Corporation, now Rakuten Affiliate Network, provides eCommerce businesses with affiliate marketing services. Rakuten Affiliate Network clients include Macy’s, Walmart, Vince Camuto, Sportscraft, and Viator.The Rakuten LinkShare network is touted by the company as the largest pay for performance affiliate marketing network on the Internet.
- Commission Junction/Affliliate by Conversant Independent survey recognizes CJ Affiliate by Conversant as the top affiliate marketing provider to America’s top 1,000 e-retailers for second year in a row.
- Shareasale— has over 2,500 merchants and allows advertisers to be flexible in determining commission structures. It costs about $500 to get started.
- Adknowledge – offer traditional ad buying services in addition to affiliate campaigns. They also work in mobile, search, social media and display advertising, giving advertisers access to affiliate and CPC outlets through one platform.
- MobAff – is mobile affiliate network that companies can use for both CPC and CPA. Mobaff utilizes SMS, push notifications, click to call, mobile display and mobile search to drive conversions for their advertisers.
- Neverblue –is targeted toward advertisers that spend more than $20,000 per month. They also work with their advertising partners on their advertisements and campaigns. They count Groupon, eHarmony, and Vistaprint are some of their clients.
- Clickbooth – Clickbooth uses search, email, and many websites to promote brands like DirecTV, Dish Network, and QuiBids.
- WhaleShark Media – This media company owns some of the most popular coupon sites in the world, including RetailMeNot and Deals2Buy.com. Companies can partner with them to drive coupon-based affiliate transactions through their sites, which often appear near the top of Google for any “term + coupon” search.
- Affiliate Marketing for Startups-Yes or No? by David Cook
- Traction’s Resource Page for Chapter 19 on Affiliate Programs by Weinberg and Mares
- 4 Myths About Affiliate Marketing You Need to Know by Steve Olenski on Forbes blog
- Afflilate Plug In-Let users send referrals, track clicks and sales and get paid using the perfect WordPress affiliate marketing tool.
- What is Affiliate Marketing? by Affiliate by Conversant (Commission Juction)
- Affliliate Marketing 101: Understanding the Basics by Startup Nation