Affiliate Marketing in a Nutshell!

The What & How of Affiliate Marketing

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What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process in which an individual, affiliate, markets a company’s products to get a commission in return. This advertising model allows any company to compensate third party publishers for generating leads and traffic to the company’s products and services. There are three types of affiliate marketing which are unattached, related, and involved. These opportunities, along with the digital disruption we are experiencing nowadays, has made affiliate marketing a billion-dollar industry.

Types of affiliate marketing

As mentioned above, the three types of business models in affiliate marketing are, unattached, related, and involved. It’s sometimes uncertain whether an affiliate has used the product or service they are promoting. However, it may not matter to the consumer one way or another.

The first type is the unattached. In this model, the affiliates don’t have any kind of connection to the product or service they are promoting. The unattached affiliates will just run PPC campaigns, hoping that the audience they are targeting makes the purchase.

The second type is related, and this model is the middle ground between the other two. The affiliate in this case would not necessarily use the product or service they promote, but he or she has a blog or a YouTube channel with the niche needed to generate leads.

The third and final type is involved. As the name suggests, this type allows the establishment of a deep connection between the affiliate, the product being promoted, and their audience. This deep connection encourages mutual trust between all the parties involved. The sense of passion in the experiences the affiliate provides is the advertisement. However, choosing the products you promote carefully is essential, because if the product or service end up being bad, the affiliate will lose the trust of their audience.

How it works?

Behind every successful model, there are multiple parties that aid its success. There are three parties involved in the process and these are the seller, the affiliate, and most importantly, the consumer. The seller is any manufacturer or brand that wants to sell its products, while the affiliate is the individual who will act as a retailer. The affiliate sells the product for the brand, seller, and gets a commission. The consumer is the final party that makes everyone wins; he or she makes the purchase, the seller gets profit, and the affiliate gets the commission. With the involvement of the three parties, the affiliate marketer can refer a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platform, podcast, or website.

To put it in simple steps:

1) The affiliate picks a product or service they like and shows an ad with a unique link on their website, blog, or social media platforms.

2) A customer checks out the ad and clicks on the unique link.

3) The customer makes the purchase.

4) The affiliate network records and tracks the transaction.

5) The purchase gets confirmed by the seller.

6) The affiliate gets paid a monetary commission.

Conclusion

Overall, affiliate marketing is a straightforward process with multiple types. It is essentially a business model where everyone wins. The sellers make profit and increase sale, the affiliates get their commission, and the consumers get the product or service they want. This article has discussed the what and how of affiliate marketing and its types. The next article will discuss the why and the advantages & disadvantages of the business model; tips on how to start a side hustle with affiliate marketing will be provided too.

Stay tuned.