Affiliate Marketing Basics

Getting involved in an affiliate marketing program is a terrific way to make extra income while publicizing your website and learning the basics of e-commerce at the same time; and the more people you can get to your website, the bigger income you are likely to see from your affiliate marketing efforts.

An affiliate marketing program is where a company pays others to market their products by referring traffic to their site. Sometimes a commission is paid when a purchase is made, simply for a click through from your site or even page views from visitors who have come from your website.

Even if the visitors you direct to the merchant’s site don’t make a purchase right away, most of these programs have a cookie duration of somewhere between one and there months. This means that as long as the visitor still has that cookie in their cache when they make a purchase, you will be paid a commission for that sale.

The biggest part of maintaining your affiliate marketing focused website will be looking into and signing up for affiliate programs with different companies. There is a lot of money to be made in affiliate marketing; as long as you opt for the right programs to sign up with.

You may not be thrilled with the thought of ad banners from other companies on your website. If you have too many different links and banners on a single page, it can annoy visitors and cause them to move on to another site; this is particularly true of animated advertisements.

Affiliate tracking is another thing to think about. After you have signed up with an affiliate program, they will generally give you a link or code to track your commissions – you need to make sure to properly integrate this code into your page to make sure that you actually are getting credit for the visitors and sales you have referred.

The code is mostly a unique user ID, which will identify visitors to the merchant’s site which have come there from your website. This code will ensure that you will receive the commissions which are due to you for your work in affiliate marketing their product or service.

30 Comments

  • Darrell P Belcourt

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    HI! and Thank You
    Iam a Newbie at Thia onlone marketing,and I must say there is a lot out there. What is the best ebook you can recomend that would explan the terminology of all the words used in the internt buisiness sector? and the ways of the applications of these terms?
    Thank you
    Darrell Belcourt

  • Clayton

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Reed

    I like your simple post here! The basic description in this post is very easy to understand. I would like to use this post in a blogg that I have; that is about teaching and help new people grow in the process of Affiliate Marketing online! Would this be possible for me to do?

    thanks!
    Clayton Schmitt

  • Florence

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    I dont have a website but I like this info it is really helpful.

    The reason I dont have a website is I find that directing people to the affiliate link is easier, especially when I dont know how to run a web page. Is this a good idea do u think?

  • TrudyVan

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Hello Again Reed,

    TrudyVan Here. I really enjoy your blog posts. You go out your way to give good information.

    See you on twitter
    kindest regards
    TrudyVan

  • Ken Wilson

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Hi 🙂

    This is an awesome article and I believe that everyone needs to take this issue of affiliate marketing more seriuosly because we all are affiliates one way or the other. so why should we make money doing it? Keep up the great work Reen!!

    Fantastic work!

    Ken

  • Bryan Hee

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Affiliate marketing is the most lucrative business that can be replicate by following proven affiliate system.

    3 basics criteria for running an affiliate business.

    1. Product

    Find the profitble products at

    http://clickbanksignup.pinurl.com

    2. Website

    Create website and provide content with it.

    http://www.blogger.com/

    3. Traffic

    i)comment in blogs
    ii) forum
    iii) articles
    iv) PPC-google adwords

    Basic knowledge about the internet terminology. Google it by typing “internet glossary” or “internet terminology”. You will get “bunch” of results.

    To your success

    Bryan Hee

    Discover Insider Secrets to Start Profitable 6 Fig Figure Income Online
    http://onlinebusinessbible.pinurl.com

  • Chris Imamshah

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Hello Reed,

    Thank you for that informative post. My question to you is how do you allow comments to be shown on your blog? Is it part of the theme of your blog or is there a plugin that makes this possible?

    Thanks,
    Chris
    http://www.fastinternetmarketingtips.com

  • Jane

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Another good post Reed. Although I’m not a newbie I still have a lot to learn. It’s nice to see you helping out those who are just starting out. The basics are important! Keep posting.

    Jane
    http://www.yournichetemplates.com/adsense

  • Kaare Pedersen

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Reed,

    You are still my most trusted mentor.

    What I like about you is that you supply only useful information and keep it brief without the hype and unnecessary wording that many marketers use to make it appear to be more content and value.

    I know that I can trust what you say. I know that if you don’t really believe something you won’t say it. I know that you will not ever in any way try to mislead someone for personal gain. That’s why people that get to know you appreciate you.

    Your blog is a great idea that I know thousands of people will enjoy and appreciate.

    To anyone who reads this I will highly recommend Reed’s joint venture coaching program. I really learned a lot from him – it was money well spent. Contact Reed and sign up with him. That’s the ticket to online success.

  • Thomas

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Hey buddy, Thomas here, just a comment on my experiances before i owned a business my self. When starting on the net for you beginners, affiliate programs rock first of all, easiest way of generating money, making new contacts and producing a good name for one self, everybody is looking not just for money but for someone they can trust, a great way of doing this is to join a community of like minded people, feel your way across the different markets, networkers and programs, its a learning process not all is peachy, even the best of marketers have a slump every now and then, too much greed out there and no heart involved, just a warning, so feeling your way around and doing your homework, great way to learn is opt-in business lists on marketers who have experiance and not just getting people business ads is best,list building is a must, you need people to look at what you got right? finding your niche so they say and you too one day can be successful. Thanks Reed for allowing me post like this. Have a good day buddy! Till next time. God_bless you.

  • Bill (MaxHomeBits)

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Reply back to Chris
    “My question to you is how do you allow comments to be shown on your blog?”

    Just Click the title of your blog post to get your permalink and use this link in any other website, blog or email, Simple eh!
    The link will then redirect you to the post and if there are any comments then you will see them all. Hope this helps.

  • admin

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    @Darrell I would suggest doing a Google search for any terms you are not familiar with for instance I’d run a search for “affiliate marketing definition” to get a definition for affiliate marketing

    @Clayton feel free to quote it and link to it.

    @Florence I would strongly encourage you to get a web site and start building your list. It wasn’t until I did that did a finally make a steady and very nice income online

    @TrudyVan thank you

    @Ken yes we are all affiliates for something and we might as well get paid and paid handsomely for it at that

    @Bryan good tips

    @Chris it’s a WordPress blog I think they can all do that. Ben Cope designed it and set it up for me https://paydotcom.com/r/35584/reedfloren/2367711/

    @Jane thank you

    @Kaare thank you very much for that 🙂 The course Kaare is mentioning is found here: http://www.thejvbootcamp.com/

    @Thomas great tips

    @Bill thanks for the tip

  • Kenny Ritchie

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    I like the post too Reed keeping things simple makes it an easy read for newbies in the field.
    There are 2 obvious types of affiliate.

    Underground like Autopilotcash and mainstream for example Dell.

    Find out what type of content you can produce from your knowledge and match it to your potential audience.

  • James

    Reply Reply September 5, 2008

    Reed
    With all the noise about Internet Marketing there’s only a handful who give solid advice
    that you can take to the bank and you my friend are one of those people.Speaking for
    myself I was a newbie about 6 months ago and with all the great content you’ve provided It’s really helped put the pieces of the puzzel together.

    James

  • Doug Allitt

    Reply Reply September 6, 2008

    Affiliate marketing is one of those things that looks pretty easy and simple on paper but is actually very complex, requiring a great learning curve. Mention must be made of the extreme importance of link cloaking VERY especially with clickbank. The most important part of course is traffic, followed close behind by traffic, then traffic, oh, and did I mention traffic – the more targeted you can make it the better.
    All the best to everyone’s endeavours.
    Cheers,
    Doug

  • William Beck

    Reply Reply September 6, 2008

    Hi Reed,
    I have affiliate products on my web site. I have seen and read articles
    about people stealing your income by changing your affiliate name
    to theirs. Is this really something to consider and do you believe
    that if a person changes your info they get paid once per change.
    Or does an affiliate marketer need a link shield?
    Thanks good content.
    Willy B
    http://www.my-family-money.com

  • Mimi Satar

    Reply Reply September 6, 2008

    Hi Reed,

    I want to make lots of money through affliate. To me it is easy rather to have own product. Your blog really helps me a lot. Thanks.

  • Funatwork

    Reply Reply September 6, 2008

    Great post.
    I always get ideas from reading your post and the readers comments.
    Thanks for being the real deal on internet marketing. We can all learn from you.
    Bill

  • admin

    Reply Reply September 6, 2008

    @Kenny thanks. For me the more “underground” affiliate programs are easier to make big money with. They tend to be information products which pay a higher commission. However those famous ones like Amazon or eBay can make a killing to.

    @James thank you

    @Doug that’s one of the reasons I like Aweber it automatically cloaks your links when you enable click tracking. That eliminates a lot (but not all) of the commission thieves

    @William protecting your links will help but it doesn’t eliminate it all. However those that will find the work around probably weren’t going to buy without getting the affiliate sale for themselves anyways.

    @Mimi glad to help. I didn’t make really good money from affiliate marketing until I built my list. I’d focus on that if I were to start over.

    @Bill thank you 🙂

  • Jussi Koiranen

    Reply Reply September 8, 2008

    Affiliate marketing 101! It boggles me how there are still so many people who just pasted a long list of banners on their website…

  • admin

    Reply Reply September 8, 2008

    @Jussi I remember making that mistake starting out.

    @Business Blog thanks for the trackback

  • Sue Geurs

    Reply Reply September 8, 2008

    Good article Reed and one that will help people just getting interested in doing affiliate marketing. Thanks for providing so much help to others who are just getting started in this business. I guess I should have expected it from a fellow Minnesotan. I grew up in Mankato just down the road from St. Peter, so it’s great to be neighbors. Keep up the good work.
    Sue Geurs
    http://www.affiliatespeedway.com

  • admin

    Reply Reply September 9, 2008

    @Sue thanks, where in Minnesota are you now? http://www.minnesotamarketingmastermind.com

  • Bryan Hee

    Reply Reply October 17, 2008

    3 basic tools for affiliate marketing;

    1. Website
    2. Product
    3. Traffic

    To your success
    Bryan Hee

  • Mohamed Akram

    Reply Reply October 24, 2008

    Hello Reed..

    That was a really nice post to beginners as you explained the most important basics in affiliate marketing in a simple way

    Mohamed Akrams last blog post..Is Clickbank Legit?

  • Anna Kindler

    Reply Reply November 16, 2008

    Hello Reed This is Anna and I am a newbie in this affiliate marketing business. I am a slow learner,and I find all this information that you write very informative. You explain in all your articles everything that a beginner like me can understand.My web site is being revamped because I changed hosting services. I am learning a lot, but I am slow in getting every thing in order. I have no doubt I will do well in the future. You just keep up the very good articles and I will keep reading.Anna

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