Learn What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Curious about Affiliate Marketing? Would you like to Learn What is Affiliate Marketing? If your answer is yes, then you have come to the right place. Before we continue, I would like to mention that this blog post is part of a series titled – How to Start and Grow Your Successful Online Business. After reading this article, you might like to check this page out. It offers many more articles to help you learn how to have a successful online business.

It can be said that Affiliate Marketing is one of the ways to truly earn Passive Income. It is where you can wake up the next morning, have your breakfast and coffee as you open your laptop. Then see emails and reports of commissions that you have earned overnight. All the earnings you made while you slept!

Yes, you read it right! This is one of the ways you can make money while you sleep, or while you are at the gym, having a night of fun out with your friends, and even while you are on vacation. The latter actually happened to me.

I was on vacation in Malaysia. Every morning, before going out to see the sights and eat really delicious food, I would check my emails on my laptop. And it was fun to see commissions made while I was asleep as well as out having fun.

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So, What is Affiliate Marketing?

In summary, it is to promote other people’s products on your websites. When a visitor makes a purchase of any of the products, you earn a commission.
Here’s a definition from Pat Flynn:

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make – Pat Flynn

Really, this is nothing new. Before Internet, salespeople were already doing this. Except that they did not use a website. They went around, knocking on doors, did some personal selling, sold the products, and they received commissions for all their efforts.

Now, with the Internet, you can Learn What Is Affiliate Marketing, and how to do it easily.

Here’s a more detailed explanation of Affiliate Marketing:

It is actually based on Revenue Sharing. A Merchant, also called an Advertiser, has a product and wishes to sell more of this product. The Merchant offers Affiliate Marketers financial incentives to promote their product or service through an affiliate program.

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The First Core Player

So, we have the first core player – The Merchant, or Advertiser. This Merchant or Advertiser can be a company selling a product such as airline tickets or hotel rooms. The Merchant or Advertiser then offers Affiliate Marketers a commission when a customer buys an airline ticket or book a hotel room.

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The Second Core Player

The next core player is the Publisher, also known as The Affiliate. This can be an individual or a company. The Affiliate promotes the product of the Merchant or Advertiser on a website. Take a look at this website to see an example of Affiliate Marketing website –  Asia Travel Gems.

When someone clicks on an Affiliate Link that is on The Affiliate’s website, and makes a purchase of the product or service on the Merchant’s website, The Affiliate earns a commission.

Most times, the Advertiser will provide The Affiliate with creative communications such as links, banner or text ads. The Affiliate will incorporate these marketing communications on their website. Again, visit this website, and this time notice the banner ads shown – Asia Travel Gems.

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The Third Core Player

This is The Customer, also known as The Consumer. They start as a visitor to The Affiliate’s website. Usually, the website has content that is of interest to the visitor. Hence, the visitor visited the website for that reason.

The visitor consumes the content, and sees the links or banner ads. The visitor decides to take action, and clicks on the link or banner ad. This will take them from The Affiliate’s website to The Advertiser’s website.

When the visitor makes a purchase of a product or service on The Advertiser’s website, this is known as a Conversion. This means the visitor has been converted to a Customer.

The Affiliate then gets a commission.

But how does The Advertiser know to give The Affiliate a commission? Let’s talk about Cookies. Not the ones you have with your coffee or tea. This is a digital cookie. Please continue reading for more information about this digital cookie.

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The Cookie – How Does It Work?

Firstly, let me explain what is a cookie.

When you sign up at an online site, for example Facebook, you will need to provide a username and password. Usually, below the fields where you fill this information, there is a checkbox that asks if you would like the browser to remember the login details.

When you check that box, you have just added a cookie to your browser. The cookie will remember your username and password for that site. So, the next time you visit the site, the login details will automatically be filled in for you. It is the cookie that does that.

Affiliate marketing uses cookies too. The cookie is used to remember where you have arrived from to The Advertiser’s website. It would include The Affiliate’s unique affiliate code.

When a visitor clicks on a link at The Affiliate’s website that goes to The Advertiser’s website, the information stored in the cookie is sent to The Advertiser’s website. The information tells The Advertiser who is The Affiliate, and if there is conversion, how much commission to give to The Affiliate.

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How Do The Affiliates Promote Their Websites?

Affiliates use effective Internet Marketing methods to promote their website. These would include organic SEO, paid search engine marketing (PPC), email marketing, content marketing, video marketing, and more.

If you are new to Affiliate Marketing, and even more unfamiliar with Internet Marketing Strategies, you can join reliable programs like Wealthy Affiliate where they will provide basic to advanced training.

This is a very good Affiliate Marketing program known as Wealthy Affiliate University, and the training is superb. It is where I learned about Affiliate Marketing, and is my #1 Recommended program.

Read my review of Wealthy Affiliate University by clicking on the blue button below.

If you are not sure, and need to find out more about Wealthy Affiliate, then head on to my post about this awesome program.

Of course, if you are already an experience digital marketer, this program will still give you some new insights and bring your digital marketing skills to the next level. I know because I learned from them.

Now, I have clients who are very happy with the digital marketing standards and service I provide. Also, if you do a Google search using the keywords – Digital Marketing Consultant Singapore – you will see that I am #1 on the search results.

How did I get there? All thanks to the training at Wealthy Affiliate.

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If you have ANY questions about this article – Learn What Is Affiliate Marketing, ANY at all, please submit your questions as comments below. I will be happy to help out.

Thank you for reading this.

Best Wishes to All!
Timotheus