What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a form of online marketing in which the publishers – affiliates are rewarded for the actions the consumers take on the internet instead of just being paid for providing advertising space.

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The affiliate systems are mainly composed of two entities: the suppliers (online shops or advertisers) and affiliates (publishers)

You can talk about affiliate marketing when a publisher (blogger, portal, forum or site) sends a visitor towards a site selling a certain product or service and the certain visitor acts in any way on the destination site ( buys something, subscribes to a newsletter, etc.)

How does this function?

The advertisers create a campaign in which they decide what action they need from the visitors (for example buying a product, evaluating a product, considering a promotion coupon, etc.) and the percentage or amount the affiliate gets for that action. After that, the advertiser uploads the advertisement of the campaign on the affiliate’s site.

The affiliates subscribe their sites to the suppliers campaigns. After they have been accepted, they have access to all the promotional tools of the suppliers, and they can use them in any possible combinations so they will generate a large number of conversions.

The affiliate marketing is tightly linked to the e-commerce market. In order for affiliate marketing to function, there must be a base established in the specific niche the likes of high profile shops with experience in market scouting. No matter how well is the affiliate promoting the brand, if the brand does not treat the clients well, the promotion is useless.

Even more important, the publisher must understand the idea and promote instead publicize. Publicizing is placing a banner for an online reservation site on a site that sells computers. Promoting means persuasion and talent to convince the visitor to buy that specific product from that specific shop.