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Affiliate Marketing merchant

Affiliate Marketing – What Is It & Why Should I Care?
What Is {Affiliate Marketing?~Definition of Affiliate Marketing~Affiliate Marketing Definition~Affiliate Program}
Affiliate marketing involves an association between two players – 1) the Merchant (aka the advertiser, or partner), and 2) the Affiliate (aka the publisher). If we think about the Affiliate Program in its entirety, we must bring in a third party, the Customer, as well.
The Merchant supplies the product for purchase, and the Affiliate attempts to sell that product for the merchant and/or refer visitors to the merchant’s website. In return, the Merchant pays the Affiliate a commission for sales and/or agreed upon performance measures.
Payment Arrangements
Commission plans are usually performance-based (which effectively shifts some of the risk from the Merchant to the Affiliate) and arrangements are regularly structured as Pay Per Click (PPC), Pay Per Sale (PPS) and Pay Per Lead (PPL) – or some mixture.
Affiliate Program Classes
If we divide affiliate marketing in terms of depth, we have three separate classifications: 1) single-tier, 2) two-tier and 3) multi-tier programs.
Single-Tier Affiliate Marketing
In Single-Tier {Affiliate Marketing}, the Affiliates get the commission, only for the visitor’s traffic or sales to the merchant’s website. Pay/performance and pay/click are included in this category.
Two-Tier Affiliate Marketing Program
In Affiliate Program~Two-Tier Marketing}, the Affiliate gets paid commission for every action performed by the people he’s referred directly, plus he gets additional commission when one of the people he’s personally referred gets compensated. Thus, he has a two-layer commission structure and the Affiliate gets paid both directly and indirectly.
Multi-Tier Affiliate Program
Multi-Tier {Affiliate Marketing} is very similar to Two-Tier Marketing, but here, the Affiliates get the commission for the sales made by their downline in multiple, unlimited, levels.
Residual Income Program
In Residual Income Affiliate Marketing~Marketing}, the Affiliate marketer is rewarded for every sale that is made by a person referred by him.
In this type of marketing, Affiliates get rewarded for every sale that his referral makes on the Merchant’s website. The only requirement is that on the first time visit, the person should come from the Affiliate’s pre-defined affiliate link. Then, whenever that person visits the Merchant website (even without using the affiliate link), the Affiliate will be paid for every sale performed by the visitor.
Cookies are what make this strategy work. A “cookie” is placed on the first-time visitor’s computer. This cookie identifies the affiliate id of the Affiliate. Cookies generally expire after 3 months; however, some may be effective longer.
Whenever a visitor visits the Merchant website, the visitor’s computer is checked for any previously created cookie. If a cookie is found, the affiliate id is retrieved from it and the Affiliate gets credited for any purchase made by the visitor.
Win-Win-Win
Once the affiliate marketing relationship is well-planned and well-executed, everyone wins:
- The Merchant gets greater visibility and market penetration, attracting customers that would otherwise be outside the Merchant’s market reach.
- The Affiliate earns a commission for online sales, without needing to establish a full e-commerce site or having to manage inventories and fulfil orders.
- The Customer learns about, and can readily access desireable and useful products that s/he would otherwise not find – at least not easily.
Good affiliate marketing is a Win-Win-Win situation.
If you like what you’ve just read, and would like to learn how to leverage your efforts, put your income on autopilot, and become a millionaire, get the FREE Infinite Income Plan report here. Follow me on Twitter: @MaxProMe.
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AvantLink Merchants: Affiliate Recruitment Tool
