Affiliate Programs

At this point I know a very small amount about affiliate programs but what I do know I will share with you. This is something that I briefly read about when I started university back in 2005. Here is the way I understand affiliate programs. I’ll use Amazon.co.uk as an example as they have an affiliate program that I have joined. You may have, at some point, visited Amazon and made a purchase or you may have visited some other website where you have clicked on a link taking you to the Amazon site and then purchase. Either way the transaction process of purchasing from Amazon for you as a customer would have been the same whether you visited the site directly or from another link because you would have still made the purchas from Amazon.

How Does An Affiliate Program Work?

An affiliate program is a way for sites like Amazon to get others to promote their products for them by offering a commission to anyone who can drive visitors to their site to make a purchase. Lets say for example, you have a website about mountain bikes. You might regularly visit exhibitions, shows, review the latest mountain bikes and talk about their accessories on your website, including helmets, gloves, clothing, books and manuals all related to mountain bikes. The Amazon affiliate program would then allow you to compliment your site by allowing you to join their associate program and put adverts of products directly related to your site. These products can, if you choose to do so, be individually hand picked to be placed on your site by you from the entire Amazon range. The way you display these links will come from ‘ready made’ codes, widgets and banner adverts some of which will be live links constantly updated on your blog or website without any further input form yourself.

Ofcourse it is not just Amazon that offer this so the next time you are on a website that offer products and services look carefully for links that say something along the lines of, Affiliates, Affiliate program,  Associate program, Make money or Earn money. Click on those links and read about how to join their program. They are mostly free to join and each program always has a very straightforward application form to fill in. Some of them will have specific rules to entry. e.g. Your website may be required to be receiving a over a certain amount of monthly visitors.

Some will offer options to pay your commissions through paypal, cheque (or check), or direct transfer into your bank account.

Here is a simple working example of an affiliate/associate link: Affiliate Marketing Books. This will take you to a specific page on Amazon about affiliate marketing books.

Advantages Of An Affiliate Program

Here are a few things you might like about affiliate programs. I know I do !!

• You do not have to own the product to offer it on your website. (Although it might be good to atleast know something about it. e.g. Common sense should tell you that if it is a book you are recommending the least you should have done is read it !!)
• You do not have to take care of customer deliveries, transactions or even refunds.
• You do not even have come in direct contact with the customer who buys the product.

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