About Affiliate Marketing

Written by Administrator Thursday, 10 September 2009 11:59

In the free market which we occupy, the majority, if not all of marketing is composed by sellers, and directed towards consumers (ie. buyers). Consequently, we have evolved into an interdependant society, in which sellers are always looking at new ways to gain the attention of the buyers upon which they depend, and buyer are looking for the most reliable and affordable seller.

While sellers and consumers clearly rely upon one another, without one's knowlege of the existence of the other, they will most likely never meet. Due to this fact, sellers have taken on the proactive role of illustrating to consumers their product or services.

Nonetheless, if a seller is physically situated in a particular local market, the sellers reach to the broader market is hindered by geographical location. This is especially true for sellers located in sparsely populated regions.  As a result, many sellers rely on the services of agents domicile outside of their region, country, and continent, in order to target consumers who may never visit their store, or see advertisments in the local paper. These agents are not actual employees of the seller, and do not receive a salary. Rather, they receive a percentage of the profits, otherwise known as a commission, on sales made in their respective markets.

Of course, over the past fifteen (15) years, the rules have changed. The internet has made websites a dominant tool for sellers wishing to extend their reach outside of their own region. This was especially apparent a decade ago, when a far lower percentage of sellers seized the opportunities which the World Wide Web presented to them. Back then, a seller could throw a webpage up, fill it with targeted keywords, and rank in the search engines immediately.

Nowadays, with the internet growing to over half a trillion websites, and counting, saturation has set in. Unlike the good old days, there is now a great need for sellers to be promoted in the search results, an array of social networks, blogs, forums, and the vast array of cyber venues at which web users gather. In particular, a seller and consumer are most likely to meet if the seller can be found on websites with high traffic. This is especially true if the website is relevant to the seller's product or service.

Not surprisingly, this is the common objective of all affiliate programs. The goal of affiliate marketers, is to introduce buyers to sellers, and sellers to buyer. When a transaction takes place as a result of such meeting, the affiliate marketer is paid a commission for each sale. Of course, what defines a sale, will be determined by the seller. For instance, some sellers define a "sale" as the actual purchase of a good or service, while others define it as simply generating a targeted lead, and paying accordingly.

Nonetheless, affiliate marketers should be aware of the limited scope of their duties. The seller is the party who will be responsible for communicating with the buyer as soon as they are connected via the affiliate. Furthermore, all issues regarding customer service, products, shipping, billing, etc., are the responsibility of the seller. The affiliate merely has a revenue sharing agreement with the seller, which is satisfied by providing the seller with clicks, leads, or sales, which is stipulated by the agreement.

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