Affiliate Programs And Your Site
I remember TV ads when I was a kid – back then they seemed funny,
sophisticated and cute. Now looking back at those same
advertisements I find myself laughing at how improbable it is that they
would have reached enough people to have been worth the cost and
effort – the difference is that times change and with them the way
people need to be reached.
For a while in the 80‟s the radio was the biggest method of reaching
the masses and disco and rock and roll was king again – then tastes
and technology became to change again as cell phones and handheld
computers grew in popularity and internet access, once just a text-
based network created as an emergency communications system
flourished in so many homes that it became as popular as cable TV
and in some cases has even replaced phone service!
In this day and age the biggest problem most advertisers have is
finding a way to reach the right people with that carefully targeted
advertisement so that it will do the most good.
And that is where so many of the new advertising schemes and
techniques began – first with mass email and postal blitzes which were
considered effective if they had a 1% return, and then as the web
grew and people became more sophisticated online banner ads and
sales. The latest in this emerging trend of internet-based advertising
and eCommerce is the booming and still growing affiliate or associate
programs which you are certain to have heard about in one form or
another.
Most people have heard of an affiliate program even if they don‟t know
exactly what they are or how they work – these new „holy grails‟ of
modern marketing are touted as providing the ability to earn income
24-hours a day without doing anything – just add some magic code to
your existing website, and viola!
The claims go on and on about what affiliate programs can do for you
and about how easy they are to implement - but how many people
really understand the new Shangri-La of modern eCommerce, and just
what exactly is an „affiliate program‟ anyway?
Until you understand at least this much getting involved in one may
not only not earn you untold riches as you doubtless dream, but could
even cause you headaches, confusion and in rare cases even cost you
both in time and money. So sit right back as we „tell a tale‟ and learn
first the basics, and then more about one particular affiliate program
and how to use it to successfully cash in on the emerging market.
AFFILIATES: WHAT THEY ARE
The term “Affiliate Program†(also called an “Associate†program at
times) refers to the numerous ways you can earn money either
through marketing and advertising a merchant‟s product or from
actual sales of their products on your web site. Basically you are
selling other company‟s goods or services for them and in return they
are cutting you in for a percentage or a flat rate of the sale.
Much less intrusive and annoying then the old bulk email craze of the
late 90‟s this method of reaching the public has the unique benefit of
utilizing existing web pages and traffic to push the products and or
services that the affiliate needs to present to the masses, and as such
revenues that would in the past have gone into the pockets of large
research and advertising firms are instead being shared with the hardy
web site owner who is willing to put that splash screen or link on their
page.
If nothing else the lessons learned in the kickback against pop-up
advertisements and bulk emailers show that there are limits to what
people will stand for when it comes to invasive advertising – unless the
product being advertised is something that they really want to see!
That is why targeting is so important, and why affiliate programs can
be so successful.
As with any good idea however there are caveats and exceptions –
most often greedy web site owners will place too many non-related or
untargeted advertisements on their page in hopes of gaining great
amounts of money, only to find that just like bulk e mailers of the past
they have killed the proverbial golden goose!
The best affiliate program in the world can‟t make money for the web
page designer who doesn‟t put a little thought into which products or
services he presents and how he presents them.
You can in effect think of affiliate programs as the „vending machines
of the 2000‟s‟ because that is how they work – all the work and
stocking is handled by the people who „own‟ the machines, you only
supply a little oversight and a place to store the equipment.
In exchange for allowing the machines (or in this case the code) to be
stored on your property you are given a cut of any profits that are
generated, as stipulated by whatever contract you agree to.
Since most affiliate sites work by posting links to the merchants site or
„backend‟ methods to identify where the link came from has to be
incorporated into the link so that commissions will be tracked and
given to the site from which the customer followed the link.
In any affiliate program there will be at least three parties: the
customer, the affiliate site (you or your web site) and the merchant.
In some cases an affiliate „broker‟ may interface between you and the
merchant, handling the code generation and redirects or providing the
backend for the actual merchant and in some cases taking a lion‟s
share of any funds paid by the merchant for the service.
This particular marketing strategy was started in the late 90‟s by
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos in an attempt to link book sales
from web sites tailored to specific fan groups to available merchants
on Amazon.com and was so successful that it now boasts more then
half a million affiliate sites, many of which are not commercial sites in
themselves but cater to a specific market or user group that see the
affiliate service as a service of the web site itself and not a marketing
tool.
