Affiliate marketing is a commercial agreement between two websites. The affiliate commits to promoting or selling products or services offered by the other party in exchange for a pre-agreed commission.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a well-established digital marketing model in many countries, and it still has strong growth potential in markets where it is less mature.
In short, it is a partnership between several parties:
- ADVERTISER (or merchant)
The company that wants to promote its products or services. - PUBLISHER (or affiliate)
The owner of a website, blog, landing page or newsletter who makes their online space available for the advertiser’s promotional purposes. - PLATFORM
The affiliate network that tracks and manages transactions between the parties.
In some cases, the advertiser can run the entire process completely in-house.
That is exactly what Amazon does.
How does it work?
It isn’t hard to understand. Affiliate marketing is a classic win-win system, where every party involved benefits.
Here’s how it works.
There are three basic steps:
- The publisher posts promotional content that links to the advertiser’s website.
- The user lands on the advertiser’s site and completes the action defined by the affiliate program, for example buying a product or downloading a document.
- The advertiser pays the commission due.
The affiliate link pointing to the advertiser’s site contains a unique code that makes it possible to track where each user came from.
Payment models
Affiliate programs use several payment models, either percentage-based or fixed-amount.
Compensation is directly tied to the type of action users take on the affiliate site or blog.
The most common models are:
- PPV = Pay per View: the publisher earns a commission for each view generated.
- PPL = Pay per Lead: payment is based on the conversions generated (contact form submissions, mailing list sign-ups, file downloads, etc.).
- PPC = Pay per Click: the advertiser pays the publisher every time a user clicks the ad, much like the display ads served through Google AdSense.
- PPS = Pay per Sale: the advertiser pays the agreed amount for every sale made through the affiliate site.
Naturally, results depend on the quality and traffic of your website.
How to make money with affiliate marketing
You can make money with affiliate marketing.
But even though no formal qualifications are required, it takes real effort.
In short, affiliate marketing is a real job that requires consistency, time and some practical skills.
For example:
- being comfortable with numbers and copywriting;
- a working knowledge of English;
- the ability to run email marketing and newsletter campaigns;
Done well, affiliate marketing can become a worthwhile additional source of income.
The key is to work methodically.
Have questions?
The MailSenpai team is always happy to share useful information and clear up any doubts.