What is Affiliate Marketing? To answer this question all we have to do is take a look at any online or offline business that wants to increase their sales and bottom line profits. All business today has a difficult time capturing what they would call their fair share of the marketplace. Business owners realize that they must promote their business in order to achieve the level of success that they desire. However, promoting one's business can be very expensive and the results can be very disappointing. Advertising dollars need to be allotted with very careful planning.



Offline businesses for hundreds of years have incorporated a sales force to leverage their advertising dollar and achieve their sales goals. This is one form of word of mouth advertising that can achieve immediate sales with a controlled advertising cost. The sales force usually will get all promotional tools provided by the business owner and all the sales force has to do is utilize those tools through a diligent pro-active plan. The sales force usually will be paid in one of two ways, either by negotiated salary or negotiated commission structures. Of course there are many variations of these plans. The biggest problem with this plan is that it takes many more resources to achieve those sales goals.

In retrospect, online marketing can also be very difficult and expensive. Herein lays one of the solutions to this problem, Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate Marketing is the combined agreement of efforts between the merchant and the affiliate. The merchant usually provides pre-tested advertising scripts to the affiliate with suggested advertising sources that have proven to be effective in sales and satisfied customers. Training from the merchant has been increasing to a level that can attract an even larger number of affiliates. Usually the merchants cost of providing this training is much lower that training provided by offline merchants. The merchant can attract a much larger affiliate sales force with minimal outlay due to email marketing strategies available.

Affiliate Marketers have a tremendous challenge on their hands, in that there are so many opportunities available on the internet for them to choose from. The affiliate marketer must use common since in their selection of the affiliate programs they decide to become involved in. They need to do their homework in their investigation of the opportunities that appears to be related to their particular area of interest. Their homework should include among other things the reputation of the merchant regarding the quality of the product being offered, the commission structure being paid to the affiliate and when the commission will be paid. Is the affiliate commission being paid a one time payment or a residual payment plan that pays on a pre-determined basis for longevity of the customer continuing with the product or service? In other words is the customer paying for the product once or is the product a recurring service that pays a commission on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis.

In conclusion, Affiliate Marketing can be a very lucrative method of achieving a merchants sales goals and providing a quality source of income for the Affiliate Marketer. Through thorough investigation of the many opportunities available on the internet and proper selection of the programs being promoted the Affiliate Marketer can look forward to a very happy and prosperous future with Affiliate Marketing on the Internet.