I get asked this question a lot.  In fact, just recently I was explaining Affiliate Marketing to my dear ‘ole Dad and found that the more I tried to map it out for him the more complexity there is to this wonderful industry.  By end of the conversation, I was able to sum it all up by saying it is an opportunity to make large sums of money simply marketing other people’s products online for a commission of their sales price!! That finally sunk in…

But to give the formal explanation to the question, I’ll begin with a quick definition. Based on the concept of crowdsourcing (outsourcing to a large group of people), a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought to their site via online marketing efforts. Generally, the affiliate uses an Internet-based marketing practice but not always to direct traffic to the business.

So, by now you must be wondering, “How does this industry work”? Let’s look at identifying the “players” and how it all comes together so that YOU the affiliate marketer can see the potential to earn a paycheck!

There are four major players in the game: the Merchant (more commonly known as ‘Retailer’ or ‘Brand’), the Network, the Publisher (more popularly identified as ‘the Affiliate’) and the Customer. Supporting the four major players also include Affiliate Management Agencies, Super-Affiliates and Specialized Third Parties vendors. But we’ll address those players in another article so as to not complicate things!

Now, how do these players interact? If I had a diagram, the process flow goes something like this: The Customer goes to the Affiliate site (undoubtedly because of a smart marketing technique) à from there is re-directed to the Merchant à the Merchant then compensates the Affiliate.  The process itself is the actual Network (the fourth major player).  Makes sense so far?

Where Affiliate marketing gets fun is in the methods marketers use to generate the traffic. After all, getting the traffic leads to sales and that’s where the money is to be made! Some of the known methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some cases display advertising.  Sometimes affiliates use other creative techniques such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing is a fun industry to work in, and the opportunity to earn large paychecks if limitless with the right training and knowledge. With a little time, effort, and patience, YOU TOO can break into this awesome industry!

Want to know how to get started on the right foot without wasting precious time and hard earned money on out-of-date and useless information? And believe me, been there, done that! Stay tuned for my next article… How to Get Started in Affiliate Marketing!