Affiliate Marketing is simply promoting a brand or business, in exchange for a commission, on one's own website or blog on behalf of that brand or business. The affiliate marketer uses the text links, images or banners provided by the advertiser on it's website or blog and helps the advertiser generate sales and profits. For every referral made by the affiliate marketer, the advertiser pays a certain percentage of the sales profit to it.
Affiliate marketing is an interesting business area and can be a lucrative career choice. Many people out in the business world are making thousands of dollars in this area.
What are the things required to become an affiliate marketer?
- You should have a website or blog or any other online presence like a forum or page. If you don't have any, you can make it now for free with weebly, blogger and hubpages.
- You should try to promote those products that you love, relate to your site and benefit your readers. Promoting a product you are uncertain about can make you lose your audience and hence money.
- Try to promote multiple businesses as it gives your audience an array of choice. In this way, you will have a clear vision of what business your audience do like the most.
- Increase traffic to your site by promoting it on social networking sites like facebook, twitter and Google. The more the traffic, the more the chances of you generating referral sales.
- You can ask for marketing tips and tools from your advertiser. The advertiser-marketer relationship is based on mutual trust and profit.
Most of the businesses today don't partner with publishers (affiliate marketers) directly. They rather partner with third-party which recruit marketers and administer their marketing campaigns.
Here are some of the trusted affiliate marketing platforms.
CJ Affiliate, formerly Commission Junction, is a Californian-based affiliate marketing company that is said to be the largest affiliate platform in the North America. CJ operates globally and is rated as one of the best affiliate platforms worldwide. CJ provides it's publishers opportunity to generate sales from tools like deep link automation, pay-per-call, lead generation and mobilized solutions. Publishers can also track their detailed referral activity and reports. The minimum payout is $100.00 and can be via cheque, paypal or direct bank deposit.
Amazon is a top rated retailer of goods and services worldwide. Amazon has its own affiliate platform called Amazon Associate. It's a great platform for bloggers seeking more money. Amazon has an inventory of reputable products and is a master at converting visitors into customers. It grabs it's visitors' attention with it's unbeatable sales offers and promotions. Publishers can get a higher cut in raises as they promote more products and generate more sales. The minimum payout is is $100.00 if the publisher demands payment by cheque and $10.00 if the publisher demands direct bank deposit or amazon gift card.
Google Adsense is extensively used by publishers in Google network of content sites worldwide. It serves targeted advertisements directed to site visitors. The advertisement is administered, sorted and maintained by Google. Adsense publishers have access to a large pool of advertisers, precise and targeted ads and extensive reports. The minimum payout is $100.00 and can be made via cheque or direct bank deposit.
FlexOffers is an easy-to-use affiliate platform which has partnerships with well-known brands like JCPenny, Verizon. Kmart, Starbucks, Nordstorm etc. With FlexOffers, publishers can also earn a commission of 10% on referring another publisher.There is a variety of content that publishers can promote on their sites. The minimum payout is $100.00 and can be received via mail or direct bank deposit. The payments are made once a month.
Peerfly is known for it's courteous and helpful staff and is an excellent platform. It accepts publishers from all over the world and connects them with thousands of advertisers. According to mThink, Peerfly is # 1 affiliate manager in 2015. It provides it's publishers free training and tools and offer the participation in reward contests. The minimum payout is $50.00 and payments are made on weekly, bimonthly and monthly basis. Payments can be received via cheque, paypal, payoneer, bank wire and ACH (US only).
Rakuten, formerly Linkshare, is reportedly have over 10 million affiliate partnerships and offers over 2500 affiliate programs. It occupied # 1 spot on 2012 Blue Book of Top 20 Affiliate Networks. Rakuten is an easy-to-use affiliate platform and offer search service to it's publishers. The minimum payment threshold depends up on advertisers, can be $1.00 or $100.00, and can be received via mail, paypal or direct bank deposit.
ClixGalore is an Australian-based affiliate platform that has various affiliate programs for publishers like pay-per-impression, pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, and pay-per-click. Publishers can also earn by refering other publishers to this platform. The minimum payout is US $50.00 and can be received via paypal or cheque.
There are other platforms also which might suit you better based on your preference and site content. Please feel free to share your experience as an affiliate marketer with our viewers in the comments below.
