Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is something that many people engage in: from big businesses to individuals with blogs, there are rewards on offer for all sorts of people who are willing to put the time and effort into making sure their affiliate marketing operations are a success. This article provides an overview of what affiliate marketing is and also looks at how you could gain from it when trying to make money online.

For those not in the know, affiliate marketing is where, for example, a company signs up lots of partners to its website. Those partners are known as affiliates and they advertise on their own websites on behalf of the company. This advertising generally takes the form of banners, adverts and links that link back to the original company.
When a web user clicks onto one of those adverts and subsequently makes a purchase on the company’s website, the affiliate receives a commission as a thank you for sending business the company’s way. This means that everyone involved in the affiliate marketing scheme can benefit: the company gets more business as a result of the advertising, and the affiliates receive money in return for simply displaying some ads on their site.

In terms of the company running the affiliate scheme, they also gain as it means their message will be reaching a wider audience. This is especially true if their affiliate marketing scheme is selective, meaning that they only affiliate with sites that are relevant to what they do and thus more likely to be in receipt of web users who might be interested in their adverts. If they are trying to market a new product or service, an affiliate marketing campaign can be a good way to help do this.

The affiliates also benefit from the marketing scheme because it helps to increase their links with other companies: they will be able to say that they are affiliated with the company in question, something that could be useful in future networking. It is also a good way of bringing in a passive income for a minimal amount of initial effort; once the scheme has been set up on the affiliate’s website, they will be able to just let it run and collect the rewards when web users make a purchase as a result.

One thing to bear in mind with affiliate marketing is that, as an affiliate, you might sometimes be asked to pay a fee when you sign up with a scheme. You will therefore need to weigh up the benefits of a paid scheme versus the free schemes on offer; you might decide that the paid scheme will be more lucrative in the long run, or a free option might appeal to you more.

This means that when you are choosing affiliate schemes to get involved with you should look at how much affiliates get paid for sending business to the company in question; you need to make sure it is definitely worth your while before you sign up and commit to displaying another company’s advertising on your site.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CASHBACK AND AFFILIATE PROGRAMME

If you are a website owner, then it is possible to make money from both cashback and affiliate programs. Some people, though, make the mistake of thinking these are basically the same thing and, while they are very similar, they also have their differences. These are important to understand as it might make a difference to whether or not you decide to sign up to a particular program. This article looks at the key components of cashback and affiliate programs, as well as some of the differences between them.

What is a cashback program?
A cashback program is essentially exactly what it sounds like. You sign up to a cashback scheme, which you then promote on your website. This generally includes products from major retailers. When someone makes a purchase as a result of clicking on one of your links, the retailers pay you for it – and the customer also receives some cashback, which is their incentive for getting involved. As a customer, it helps you to save money and, as a website owner, it gives you some extra income while the retailer benefits from the additional sale.

What is an affiliate program?
An affiliate program is different to a cashback program in that the customer doesn’t get any money if they buy something through your website. Instead, with affiliate programs, you display links and adverts from companies and, if customers click through onto those adverts, you receive money. This is known as ‘pay per click’ advertising. There are lots of third party affiliate programs, which are available to join and they offer a range of adverts that you can display on your site. Huge retailers such as Amazon and Tesco also run their own schemes.

What are the key differences between the two?
As you can see from the above outline, there are both similarities and differences between cashback programs and affiliate programs. One of the main differences is that, with cashback programs, the customer also benefits by getting some money back on whatever they buy through your site as long as it is linked to a cashback deal. As the money is split more ways, you might find that this means you get less out of it as a result.

Also, with affiliate programs, you arguably have more room to manoeuvre when it comes to what you display on your site. For example, you could sign up to an affiliate program that only works with certain types of company so you can tailor the advertising better.

Whichever you decide to go with, though, you need to remember that your focus should be on the quality of the traffic generated rather than the quantity. After all, it is much better to have 100 people visit your website and either click onto an advert or make a purchase than it is to have 100,000 visitors, none of whom take advantage of the offers. This means that affiliate programs and cashback schemes can work for big or small websites – as long as you have an audience, you can have success.