Tag: online merchant

Why You Should Participate in Affiliate Marketing

August 8, 2013

Many wonder if affiliate marketing really works and the truth is, it does. It really does. Why, you ask? It’s because of the low risk involved and the success of the payoff. What sounds better than low risk and higher gains!

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Here are the reasons why it’s worth it:

– No need to buy or hold any stocks
– You don’t have to deal with customers or sales
– No dealing with dispatchers or refunds
– Mobile affiliate marketing

Not only are there many low risk options for you, but there are also many different creative strategies for you to choose from in affiliate marketing as well.

1. Ad Banners are the most predominant type of affiliate marketing. Affiliate managers make sure you have a set of several ad banners to emphasize various aspects of your company. These can include seasonal promotions or special product categories. They will place certain ads at specific times to give you the best circumstances. For example, placing engagement rings during wedding season or attractive gifts during Christmas time.

2. Widgets are for interaction with your customers. If your customer is on a website for food, there can be a search widget on the side that allows customers to type in a certain kind of food and lead them to all of the recipes that include that ingredient.Widgets are also used to share information with others through social media, making people interact through the web and with each other. This advertising can spread more easily due to the social interaction aspect of it.

3. Blogs often have a sidebar that shows “related posts” that can peak the interest of your audience by catering to their individual likes. This is very smart because you don’t want to just advertise to everyone as a whole if you know they aren’t interested in your product. The click-through rate for that is very low. If you seek the people you are sure will be interested in your business, the rate of positive response will grow in the long run.

Affiliate marketing isn’t something you should just bypass. It is a great method to get ahead in the game, especially if you are a startup and don’t have a lot of support. By combining forces with a more established company, you will more likely flourish as a company without the risk of losing it all.

Affiliate Marketing: A Win-Win Situation?

July 31, 2012

Of all the marketing tools I mention, I rarely take the time to discuss affiliate marketing. It’s often known to be a win-win situation, which is probably true so long as both parties are performing up to expectations. If you’re new to this term, affiliate marketing is an agreement made between a merchant and an affiliate (usually a blog owner or affiliate professional) in which the affiliate posts links or ads for the merchant’s products and receives a commission from the sales. Below, I will take you through the basic steps of an affiliate marketing agreement. This should help you to understand whether this could a good option for you.

1. Affiliate and merchant enter into an agreement– No matter what side you’re on, be sure to research the background of the company/website you’ll be dealing with. If you’re the merchant, make sure the affiliate site is popular enough to drive sales. It should also be relevant to what you offer. Lipstick sales will be more effective from a make-up blog than a foodie website. On the affiliate side, make sure the merchant has a good product with sales potential. Once you find your match, set up the terms of commission, payment period and goals.

2. Affiliate links to merchant’s website or product– Again, lipstick belongs on a makeup blog, cake mixers belong on a foodie site. Affiliates should write articles that link to the product, so relevancy is key. Reviews are always a great way to promote a purchase.

3. Someone clicks to the merchants site and makes a sale– Success! The merchant tracks users who enter the site through the affiliate and takes note of each sale made by these users.

4. Affiliate is paid at the end of an agreed upon payment period– If all goes well, the affiliate and merchant get the results they hoped for. If not, it’s important to review the data from the time period and make some changes, even if that means one side moving on. Fortunately, affiliate marketing becomes more affective as you gain experience.