What Affiliate Marketing Is And How It Actually Works

By

Theodore Henderson

The Wisdom Man

–

Have you ever explored what affiliate marketing is and how it works? Turning into an affiliate marketer is a fantastic system for online businesses. It works particularly well for bloggers hoping to increase their present income or even to start bringing in cash from their blog. There are multiple choices with regards to the whole field of affiliate marketing. This includes tactics and strategies to make affiliate marketing work for you.

Before we get started on how to go about making affiliate marketing into a career, let’s learn some much-needed basics.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Simply, by definition, affiliate marketing is known to be “a marketing arrangement.”  It is one “…by which an online retailer pays a commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.” If you’re new to the term of affiliate marketing, there’s a possibility all of this went completely over your head.

For a free trial click here or the image below.

Let’s unpack this for you. This type of marketing is primarily regarded as one of the modern, quick, effective, legal ways to make money online.

Many may say it is a ‘side hustle.’ However, there are a lot of people so successful at it that it is now their primary means of income.

Simply stated, it is a partnership between an individual and a business. The individual creates content, such as blog posts, audios, videos, etc. to market that business’s products or services. This drives an audience towards the product or service for sale. In turn, the individual, otherwise known as the affiliate marketer, earns a commission.

However, this is only a basic description of what it involves. Affiliate marketers can make use of any method that works best for them. For example, a blogger looking to become involved would most likely become an affiliate through an affiliate network. One simple tactic is that they would either place a button, banner, or link within their blog posts as a call to action for readers.

The ultimate goal is to draw their reader’s attention and drive them to the product being marketed. Also, the more social media channels and platforms leveraged on the internet, the better the product will be advertised.  See another of our excellent articles on this topic called “4 Key Benefits of Affiliate Marketing To Start Your Online Business.”  

History of Affiliate Marketing

It’s an often-repeated myth that Amazon was the creator of affiliate marketing. In fact, Affiliate marketing was started in 1989 by a man named William J. Tobin.  He holds the distinction of being the world’s first web advertiser and marketer. William J. Tobin was a very enterprising fellow. He also founded PC Flowers and Gifts. He theorized the whole idea of affiliate marketing and propelled his program on the Prodigy Network.

The model of affiliate marketing that he created included paying the Prodigy Network a commission on each deal or sale that was being made. By 1993, Tobin’s model on affiliate marketing was producing more than $6 million yearly for Prodigy. This achievement urged Tobin to bring forward his idea to the world in 1996. However, it wasn’t given any status until 2000.

For more information click here or the image below.

Side by side in 1994, a BuyWeb Program was launched by CDNOW. It revolved around the then-novel idea of music websites reviewing different albums of musicians released and then linking them to CDNOW. It made it easy for visitors to then head over to their site and buy the album if they liked it if desired.

And while Amazon is thought to be the starter of affiliate marketing, it gave birth to its associate’s program in 1996, even after CDNOW’s venture. However, though they weren’t the first to introduce the idea, they were the first ones to attract global attention to the concept of affiliate marketing.

The model they introduced was similar to the other ones.  It involved a paid commission to the marketer, which was a certain percentage of the price of the product sold. Since then, this became the general model followed by all affiliate marketers.

–

Click Here for the 12 Minute Affiliate System Free Training

The Affiliate Marketing Business Model

The business model of affiliate marketing is not always easy to understand. Still, it can be gratifying once you figure out what you have to do. What affiliate marketing is then is one of the most basic plans of action that nearly everybody who has brought in cash online has some involvement in. It very well may be infinitely rewarding, yet gives its arrangement of advantages and disadvantages, as each plan of action does.

So if you are still determining for yourself what affiliate marketing is, let us keep it simple. At its most fundamental level, affiliate marketing is where you join with a business or an organization to sell their items or services. You get paid ordinarily every time somebody purchases something.  Or if a person performs what was expected from them from the deal made with the business of the organization.

You are paid a commission each time you succeed in closing a deal or making a sale. This cash is pretty much from the advertising spending plan or budget of the business that you are in partnership with during the affiliate marketing program.

Some businesses also offer rebills, which are an affiliate marketer getting paid for quite some time even after the sale has been made. Expectedly, these products are a little challenging to sell. Still, with the right kind of approach and expertise, they are rewarding in the long run.

–

For a free copy of “Traffic Secrets” click here or the image below.

So while affiliate marketing may have become familiar over time, not everyone can easily make it big. However, keeping yourself well informed right off the bat may give you an upper hand.

Conclusion – What Affiliate Marketing Is

Map out an affiliate marketing plan and take action. 

Here’s your new strategy:

1. Create a website and build an audience that trusts you and enjoys what you do.
   
2. Do this by generating a genuinely unique and passionate content with a strong visual brand and mission statement.
   
3. Find a few big-ticket affiliate products and services and create sales pages for those, then “launch” them from your site by using email blasts and teasers to create hype.
   
4. Find the products that are most successful and then send more visitors here through paid advertising.
   
5. Meanwhile, sell as many smaller digital products, Amazon physical products, and services, through articles and websites that you promote using SEO.

There you go now stop procrastinating and start marketing!

For more on this topic see our posts “How To Do Affiliate Marketing Right For Business Success,” “4 Key Benefits of Affiliate Marketing To Start Your Online Business“, and “How To Use Affiliate Marketing Fundamentals for Online Business Success.” 

Click here to gain access to the free video training on starting an online business and profitable digital publishing.

About The Author

Theodore Henderson works with business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporate professionals on their business skills, marketing, and leadership strategies. He is an Amazon best-selling author, a Certified Career Coach, Business Skills & Leadership Coach, and a Certified Social Media Security Professional Powered by CompTIA. Visit The Wisdom4Business Blog for the complimentary series on business startup and entrepreneurship.

There are some affiliate links below and I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no additional cost to you and it helps us to continue providing quality information to our readers. These are all products I highly recommend. I won’t put anything on this page that I haven’t verified and/or personally used.