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| Affiliate Marketing .. Introduction |
Affiliate Marketing ..
What’s inside: An introduction to affiliate marketing, the key terms and concepts you need for this chapter and the history of affiliate marketing as it emerged from the murky depths of the adult industry. Looking at how it works, discover different actions and rewards, how tracking works (and cookies get involved). Uncover some of the ways that affiliates promote merchants, how affiliate networks fit into the scheme of things and some handy tools of the trade for affiliate marketing. There is an introduction to setting up an affiliate campaign, pros and cons of affiliate marketing and of course a summary of the chapter, and a look at how it all fits together.
Introduction
If you recommend a restaurant to a friend, and that friend visits the restaurant because of your recommendation, the restaurant’s revenue will have increased because of your referral. This is “word of mouth” marketing. But you, as the referrer, do not see any of the cash benefit that the restaurant does!
Imagine that the restaurant gave you 10% of the bill for every person that you referred to the restaurant. They would be paying you a finder’s fee for new customers. There are a number of businesses that market this way offline. Brokers for insurance products are an example, but these referrals can be hard to track. Online, they are very easy to track. This system of reward where compensation is based on referral is called affiliate marketing, and is used to describe this type of marketing in an online environment. Affiliate marketing is used widely to promote web sites, and affiliates are rewarded for every visitor, subscriber or customer provided through their efforts. Because of this, affiliates are sometimes viewed as an extended sales force for a web site.
Affiliates are paid for performance, so affiliate marketing is also referred to as performance marketing.
What’s inside: An introduction to affiliate marketing, the key terms and concepts you need for this chapter and the history of affiliate marketing as it emerged from the murky depths of the adult industry. Looking at how it works, discover different actions and rewards, how tracking works (and cookies get involved). Uncover some of the ways that affiliates promote merchants, how affiliate networks fit into the scheme of things and some handy tools of the trade for affiliate marketing. There is an introduction to setting up an affiliate campaign, pros and cons of affiliate marketing and of course a summary of the chapter, and a look at how it all fits together.
Introduction
If you recommend a restaurant to a friend, and that friend visits the restaurant because of your recommendation, the restaurant’s revenue will have increased because of your referral. This is “word of mouth” marketing. But you, as the referrer, do not see any of the cash benefit that the restaurant does!
Imagine that the restaurant gave you 10% of the bill for every person that you referred to the restaurant. They would be paying you a finder’s fee for new customers. There are a number of businesses that market this way offline. Brokers for insurance products are an example, but these referrals can be hard to track. Online, they are very easy to track. This system of reward where compensation is based on referral is called affiliate marketing, and is used to describe this type of marketing in an online environment. Affiliate marketing is used widely to promote web sites, and affiliates are rewarded for every visitor, subscriber or customer provided through their efforts. Because of this, affiliates are sometimes viewed as an extended sales force for a web site.
Affiliates are paid for performance, so affiliate marketing is also referred to as performance marketing.
