What Is Affiliate Marketing In Plain Terms [2023]
WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based advertising where advertisers put affiliate links in their promotions to sell goods or services. These affiliate links are usually associated with some sort of tracking software so that they can track where the affiliate viewers go after they click on their link.
This way, affiliate marketers get paid according to how many people go to the advertiser's website after clicking on their affiliate link rather than based on how many people visit the affiliate marketer's own site.
For example, if you wanted to promote Company X's product and drive traffic to Company X's site, an affiliate marketer would put a graphic of Company X's products on his website with affiliate links embedded within it. When someone clicks this image and ends up buying Company X's product, then you would get paid affiliate money from Company X.
If affiliate marketing sounds complicated, that's because it is. Affiliate marketers need to be skilled in three areas: search engine optimization, which involves getting their affiliate links ranked higher on Google and other search engines; media buying/analytics software such as Omniture and Google Analytics so the affiliate marketers know where and how people are clicking on their affiliate links; and internet marketing strategies such as email list management and landing page creation.
Affiliate marketing has become increasingly popular because you can run affiliate campaigns on your own site without having to set up or manage affiliate relationships yourself.
You simply put an affiliate link in your promotional material and once the visitor clicks it and makes a purchase (or completes another required action), you get paid according to how many people went through your affiliate link rather than the other way around.
SEO and affiliate marketing expert with over 20 years of experience in the industry. In my spare time, I enjoy blogging about topics that relate to affiliate marketing as well as other aspects of making money online.
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