Affiliate Marketing - The Top Three Revenue Generation Techniques
In recent years, affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular ways to make money on the Internet. Unlike traditional retailing, affiliate marketing provides the opportunity to earn money without the need to handle or ship physical products, which makes entering the business reasonable for just about anyone. One can even earn affiliate revenue on the Internet without having a Website. Although it is not necessarily easy to make money as an affiliate, it can be easier than just about any other Internet business model.
Affiliate marketing is a system whereby an individual joins forces with with the seller of a product to market that product on the seller's behalf. If that individual helps make a sale, she receives a percentage of the sales price for the effort.
There are three primary ways to earn money as an affiiiate:
The pay per click, or PPC model. A good example of this would be Google Adsense. Affiliates can elect to have Google ads placed on their Website. Those ads will be related to the content of the Web page itself. If the page is about cars, Google will place car-related ads there. If a visitor to the page clicks on an ad, the owner of the Website receives a payment of anywhere from a penny to a few dollars. The Website owner is effectively acting as an affiliate for both Google and the advertiser, as Google is making money from the advertiser and the Website owner is receiving money from Google.
The pay per sale model may be the most common model on the Internet. With pay per sale, the seller provides the affiliate with a special hyperlink that has identifying information for the affiliate and connects to the seller's Website. The affiliate can send the link to a mailing list or list it on a Web site. If a customer clicks on the link and buys the product, the affiliate receives a portion of the sales price.
The pay per lead model is interesting in that the customer need not buy anything for the affiliate to get paid. Pay per lead is prevalent in the insurance business, where companies will pay just for providing visitors who request insurance quotes. Affiliates receive a link, as in the pay per sale model, but get paid if a customer applies for a free estimate. The payment is smaller than for the pay per sale model, but pay per lead can be quite profitable nevertheless.
There are other methods of making money in online marketing, but the methods listed above are the best-known. All three systems are effective, but each one is suited to various types of business. The wise marketer will try to take advantage of all three methods to maximize earnings potential.
Copyright 2008 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier owns Mafioso-Marketing.net, a site that sells the Mafioso Marketing ebook, and AffiliateCashSecrets-Exposed.com, a site with a review of Derrick VanDyke's Affiliate Cash Secrets.
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