Affiliate Programs – An Advertiser’s Dream

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Brian Lett

Affiliate programs have become one of the largest and most profitable entities around. Successful advertising gurus can command huge revenue by working in this industry. Few people would choose to argue with earning money by the bucketful doing something as simple and enjoyable as creating advertising campaigns.

The invention of the Internet has blown apart the traditions and boundaries of many of the industries and business sectors, which have become established in the real world. One of these is that of advertising. The online market is vastly different to that of the standard tried and tested methods. In itself, the advertising industry has been revolutionized, and brought into the technological age. As such, the marketing revolution has given birth to affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs run along the same fundamental principles as that of the standard media marketing. However, they do have some vastly different attributes to make them almost completely unique from the traditional associations of marketing. Apart from the obvious difference that it is an online campaign, affiliate programs are system based around commission and diversity.

The biggest change which this mode of marketing presents is the way in which Advertisers pay for their marketing campaigns. Traditionally, Advertisers would have to come up with funds prior to the commencement of any marketing campaign. However, affiliate programs allow the Advertiser to only pay the Affiliate once the Affiliate has generated revenue via a sale. Therefore, Advertisers no longer need to allocate funds to marketing prior to implementing their marketing campaign. Instead, the Affiliate is paid out of the revenue which their marketing efforts have generated. Thus, the Affiliate is motivated to make sales as since their income depends upon such sales.

The second major distinction is the manner in which the advertising campaign is undertaken. Instead of placing the campaign with the traditional advertising agency, and conventional mediums, such as radio, television, bill boards, etc., it is done via a network of websites and blogs. The websites and blogs, which belong to the Affiliates, display the Advertiser’s banners and other advertising material. Completed sales are allocated to the specific affiliate via a unique URL. Once a sale is made through this URL, the Affiliate earns a commission. Just think of what this means. Essentially, an Advertiser has gone from a regional market, to a world market to which they are offering their products.

One thing that you will begin to notice more and more, is that Advertisers are utilizing a combination of traditional marketing methods, and affiliate programs. However, some of the more competitive industries, such as digital product sales have taken full advantage of affiliate programs. It is almost as though these programs have been tailor made for digital products. Since digital products do not have any additional cost of goods sold per sale, it is common for Affiliates to earn a high percentage of the revenue produced by each sale. Sometimes up to 80%. Consequently, digital product affiliate programs prove to be mutually beneficial to both Advertiser and Affiliate. The expansion of technology driven advertising has allowed both digital product sales and affiliate marketing to feed off of one another.

The advantage of Affiliate Programs, is that advertisers who join an Affiliate Network, their marketing expenses come out of the proceeds of the sale.

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