Affiliate Marketing-Defined

To start things off, I suppose I better define what affiliate marketing is:

–”Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.” www.home-biz-guys.com –

So now we know the general description of affiliate marketing, what does it all mean, or rather how does it work. Below are some questions and answers by Matt Conner of Home Biz Guys that further explain the what and how of affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is where you market a product to the public and are paid a commission when a sale is made. All of the websites for the product are already done, the payment links are already in place and often the follow up emails are automatically sent to the prospects who opted in to receive more information about the product. Your ONLY job is to put the advertisement out there by promoting and driving traffic to your unique affiliate links. The rest is hands off.

How am I paid?
There’s a few ways you can be paid.

If the product is a one time purchase, you will be paid a commission one time for that purchase.

If the product or service is a subscription where the customer has to pay every month for continued use, then you will receive a commission each and every month that that customer uses and pays. Typical affiliate commissions range from 20%-50% of the total purchase price of the product or service.

How do I receive my commissions?
It depends on what each business policy’s are. I’m paid by various methods. Currently with the products I’m promoting, I’m being paid as follows:

Pay Pal

Direct Deposit into my bank account

Check in the mail – snail mail

Click Bank

. . . multiple ways

Does it cost anything to be market an affiliate product or service?
Sometimes. Normally, no. If you want to use the product and try it out before you decide to market it, however, you will have to make your own purchase. You cannot make a commission from your own purchase. Sometimes I will recommend a product that I haven’t used because it’s not a product or service that I will use in my business, however, because of the reputation of the company or person developing the product, and having read reviews and talking to other gurus in the industry who have used it, I feel good about offering it. Generally, there’s a money back guarantee on the products, but not in the case where there is a monthly subscription.

Is this how I create multiple streams of income?
Yes. This takes the pressure off of having to generate income from a primary business that takes longer to build. You certainly want to build a primary business because those are the cash geysers and you want to train leaders to leverage off of them, however, these small affiliate sales can create enough income to pay your bills, pay for your advertising for your primary businesses and then some.

How do I find products or services to sell?
The best place is to open an account at ClickBank. It’s free. Then, log in and go through all the products that are listed. You will see what the commissions are, what the websites look like and all the various niches you can choose from. Pick one you like and advertise it.

Do some affiliate products compliment your primary business?
Yes. There are some tools and resources that every business owner will want to use, regardless of their primary opportunity. So, just that alone can offset the hard costs of your own monthly expenses. An autoresponder for example, is one such tool. Every business owner online needs an autoresponder. So as someone joins you in your primary business, make sure you tell them to sign up for their autoresponder under your affiliate link and provide that to them.

- http://www.mattconner.com