Affiliate Program

Affiliate Program: Is It Right For You? Affiliate programs, when you think about it, are there a lot of them out there?Knowing that they are out there and knowing what goes on with them, how they work and who benefits from them is another thing.This article will actually touch base on all aspects of affiliate programs in hope that a better understanding of them come out.Before getting right into the thick of everything I wanted to touch base a little bit on the definition part of each particular word in hopes that knowing what each word means will bring more understanding in the whole.Let’s start with the word affiliate.It has a few meanings but the context is the same.Affiliate: to bring together, in close association, fellowship, in connection with, unite or another words attaching some thing or some one to some thing or some one else. Next, we will define program, which is another word that has many meanings.Program: a group of activities or procedures put together or coordinated by a group of people for a specific reason or agenda.Now that we have both words defined individually, let’s put them together and give an explanation of the combined words.Affiliate Program: a group of people, persons, websites, etc. get closely connected by applying a specific procedure or policy to follow.Many places use affiliate programs, in most cases it applies to websites.One or more websites get together and form an alliance. This is done more the following purposes: so each website can attract more users, make more sales, and can also be used for marketing purposes.Affiliate programs are also called an associate program.One website is called the affiliate; this site is the main site which holds the links to the other sites called merchant sites.There are three methods in which the merchant sites use to link their sites to the affiliates site.To begin both sites need to ensure they agree upon the linking method and are usually agreed upon due to the type of website in which the links will be on.The three linking methods are as follows:1) Text links: These links are actually words on the affiliate’s page. They have the URL linked to the words so that when the user clicks on it they go to the page in which they are trying to get too.The advantage of this linking method is that it doesn’t look like any advertisements due to being engrained into the website content.It is also the most natural method.2) Banner Links:This type of link is the flashy link.It’s a box with words or graphics inside which can draw the user’s eye to it.This is usually used when a site hasn’t received a lot of clicks, purchases or visitors.3) Search Box: This method allows internet users to use the search box to access an entire database as used in regular searching method.Each linking method can bring or rather has different ways in which the user is being directed.When clicking onto the link that link may take you directing to the affiliates home page or to entire store front.This will be done if a merchant wants to draw the user to all of their products and/or services and not just focus onto one item.Now, if the merchant wants to target just one specific product and/or service, the link will bring the user directly to the product/service page.This is the fastest and easier way.There is also the co-branding and registration method which can be used.The co-branding method is when even after clicking the link it still looks as if the user is still on the affiliate’s website instead of the merchants.This makes it so the merchant handles all of the sales and most of the time hosts the page and the affiliate takes care of the rest.This is beneficial to the affiliate in the way where don’t have to deal with the payments from the products, or going back and forth with the consumer, the merchant takes care of all that.The last one is the registration method.This is used by a registration form an affiliate links to the merchant’s site.During this method, a user will have to fill out a registration form which saves time in the end.Payments and knowing how much to pay an affiliate is the most time consuming issue with the affiliate program.Payments can be determined in many ways and in some cases affiliates and merchants hire a networking company to help in this process.The networking company keeps track of all activity and takes care of all payments, etc.When tracking for payment reason there are a few factors or rather ways the affiliate’s pay can be based on.The three basic one are as follows.The first is the one is where the merchant pays the affiliate for each customer that is sent to them and who purchases an item.Some times the affiliate gets a percentage of the sales.This payment arrangement is called pay-per-sale or cost-per-sale.The next arrangement is called pay-per-click or cost-per-click and it’s exactly as it states; the merchant site counts how many times a user clocks on the link and enters their site.For each click that brings the user to the site there is a payment that gets made to the affiliate. The last method in which payments are generated is made depending on the number of visitors who are referred as leads.These leads can either be added to the merchants own marketing list or can be sold to other companies as sales leads.This is basically how an affiliate program works.No matter what linking method or arrangements are made between the affiliate and the merchant, knowing if an affiliate program is right for you depend on a lot of things.The basic requires you to know how much you actually want to spend and if it’s worth the time.Will it bring in enough revenue to actually be feasible?These and many more questions need to be thought over carefully before just jumping right into an affiliate program.A person interested can speak to others that are in one of the program to get more insight if it’s right for them.Making sure it’s right is the number one step before starting.You can read more about Affiliate program on our website http://idealrevenue.com