What is Affiliate Marketing and how can Small Business use it?

Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based method by which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor, customer or action brought about by an affiliate. Small Business can and does use affiliate marketing to sell its products but also earn additional funds from their website.

Affiliate marketing requires set of people or groups to make it work.

The Merchant: One of the biggest merchants is Amazon
The Network: There are currently four major networks, but there are literally hundreds out there
The Publisher: Can be the smallest or the largest website
And most importantly… The Customer

There are three ways that publishers make money through affiliate marketing:

Pay Per Click — Every time a potential customer leaves the affiliate website (publishers) by "clicking" on the link leading to the merchant's website, a a pre agreed commission is deposited in the affiliate's account. This amount can be pennies or pounds depending on the product and amount of the commission.

Pay Per Sale — Every time a sale is made as a result of advertising on the affiliate's (publishers) website, a percentage, or commission, is deposited into the affiliate's account by the merchant.

Pay Per Lead — Every time a potential client registers at the merchant's website as a result of the advertisement on the affiliate's account, a previously determined amount (commission) is deposited into the affiliate's account.

For many website owners, this is a great way to earn some extra money without actually having to "do" anything. All it involves is placing an ad on the affiliate's website. There's no selling or promotion of any kind. The affiliate can just sit back and wait for the profits to roll in.
It's also beneficial to the merchant. By placing affiliate marketing advertising on websites all over the Internet, he has free advertising and doesn't need to do much selling on his own. The more websites a merchant is affiliated with, the more exposure his products get, and all he has to do is allow ads for his products to appear on someone else's website.

The role of the affiliate networks is to provide a platform for merchants and publishers to meet whilst providing the technology and the neutral sales assessment that monitors sales and in turn revenues to be claimed and paid.

The process is tracked via cookies (a tracking technology) placed on a customers profile. These cookies can last one visit a number of days or even weeks.

Whether you are a merchant and want to sell your products via affiliate marketing or you are a publisher looking to earn extra money via your website traffic Affiliate marketing can be tailored to your needs.

For more information on Small Business Affiliate Marketing please see: https://www.internetmarketingstrategy.co.uk/affiliate