Although different affiliate marketers for the same product have different, unique affiliate links, all these links point to the same website, the merchant's website.
The affiliate aims simply to drive as much targetted traffic as possible to his/her own unique affiliate link
The beauty of this is, once your site is up and running, you can continue to earn money from it whether you are in bed, on holiday or sleeping. This is called passive income. It is passive because after the initial effort of researching your chosen market, building a website and setting up your campaign, you can continue to earn from this with very minimal day to day input in your campaign.
An illustrative example of affiliate marketing
Say, for example, a company manufactures Product X and that company has a website and affiliate program. You like the look of the product and are interested in promoting it
You build a content rich website about some related matter, apply to the company’s affiliate program and get an affiliate link.
The link given to you is unique to you and contains your affiliate ID [a number or your affiliate name]. The link allows the merchant to track sales generated from your visitors so that you get your commission for sales generated via that link.
You then place this link on your site in an appropriate place and drive traffic to it. Every time someone clicks on that link on your website it takes them to product X's webpage. If the visitor buys product X, you get a commission
Cookies Explained
It gets better!
With some reputable affiliate programs, the person does not actually have to buy during that click.
So say Fenny landed on your website, clicked on your affiliate link to product X, looked at it then clicked off without purchasing.
During that click a cookie is placed onFenny's computer. This cookie is just a bit of code that says that the computer has viewed product X on a specified date.
A week later, Fenny remembers product X, remembers the URL of product X's website and types it into the web browser of his computer. He goes directly to Product X's webpage and decides that he would like to buy it after all. He whips out his credit card and makes the purchase
When Fenny logged on to Product X's webpage, the cookie left on his desktop kicked in. The webpage recognizes Fenny as being refered by you.
What does this mean? You get your commission.
Cookies could be valid for as little as one day to 60 days. There are even some cookies that are lifetime cookies.
As long as the purchase is made from the computer where the cookie is stored.
What is in affiliate marketing for you?
You do not need to develop your own product. You make money promoting other peoples product.
At affiliate marketing introduction we advice that you eventually develop your own product.
You have no responsibility for after sales service for the product. This is all handled by the merchant.
You do not deal with shipping or storage or packaging or inventories. Yes, you guessed it right, the merchant deals with all that too.
You can promote one product, several products, drop a product if you are not satisfied with it. You are not tied in to any product.
What is in affiliate marketing for the merchant?
More exposure
Cheap advertisement
Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick business. It requires a lot of hard work and determination
As you get involved with affiliate marketing you will come across a lot of products that claim to teach you how to make hundreds of dollars in 15 mins. Beware of the hype!!
The reality for most of us marketers is that it takes a few months of hard work to start making a substantial income.
So if it takes so much hard work and dedication, why affiliate marketing?
Financial Freedom
Imagine for a second if you continue in your current job [Just Over Broke] for the next 10 years, will you earn enough to be financially free for the rest of your life?
Now if you find a legal business that if worked at for a few months or years has the potential to make you financially free for the rest of your life, would you not grasp the opportunity?
Passive Income
Let's think of our friend Jim who works a regular job. He goes in, does his work, goes home and gets paid at the end of the month. He gets paid ONCE for the job he does. He needs to go to work again and again and again to get paid again and again and again
In affiliate marketing, you sit down, set up the site, set up your trafic generation methods and then relax. For as long as traffic keeps coming to your affiliate marketing website, you stand to make money again and again and again. It's called passive income
Multiple Streams Of Income
And hey, Fenny can only do a finite amount of work a day. He is limited by hours and the physical ability to do the job. He cannot do 6 full time jobs a day
In affiliate marketing, you can build 1, 2 30 websites, all up and making money for you