Sunday, August 7, 2011

Starting An Affiliate Marketing Campaign

By Dave Barty


Some business owners opt to start an affiliate marketing campaign as part of their overall marketing method. In many cases the affiliate marketing campaign is only a little component of the entire advertising strategy but you will find several business owners who opt to depend exclusively on this kind of marketing. The main purpose of doing this is to save cash whilst still attaining valuable advertising. However, once a business becomes more successful they should think about being more proactive and merging affiliate marketing with other types of Web marketing such as placing banner ads and orchestrating an e-mail marketing campaign. This article will take a look at what affiliate marketing is and will offer insight into why this is popular and how it can be used successfully.

An affiliate marketing campaign is essentially a situation where other web site owners place ads for your business on their web sites. These website owners are known as affiliates. It is important to understand how this kind of marketing works. In general the affiliates are given code for your banner ad to place on their web site and given the freedom to market their own website as they see fit. To advertise their web site they're also bringing in attention to your web site because of the banner ad directing visitors to your own web site.

Probably the most appealing aspects of affiliate marketing is the affiliate is only paid when he generates a desired outcome. This means the business owner is not obliged to pay the affiliate unless the affiliate is successful. Success may be defined as generating visitors to the web site, resulting in a sale or even resulting in the Web user signing up on your website or filling out a survey. The compensation for affiliates is generally based on cost per click, cost per lead or cost per sale. Cost per click and cost per lead are usually paid in terms of a flat fee which is awarded to the affiliate each time an Internet user either simply clicks through the banner ad on his web site or performs a specific action after clicking through the ad. Cost per sale may result in the affiliate being awarded a flat fee or a percentage of the sale based on the agreement between the business owner and the affiliate.

Probably the most efficient usage of affiliate marketing is to actively look for affiliates with a confirmed track record of promoting the businesses which they support. The majority of affiliate programs are open to anyone with a website and it is not necessarily damaging to permit those who aren't especially knowledgeable about marketing to run your banner ad but it is far more worthwhile to seek out affiliates who are quite proficient and generating website visitors to their own website. This is important because the more visitors they receive each month the more likely your web site it to receive interest from visitors who click the affiliates banner ad.

Another part of affiliate marketing which could contribute to success or failure is the design of your banner ads. It is essential to remember affiliate marketing is viewed the same way other kinds of marketing are viewed and care ought to be taken to create banner ads which will be attractive to your target audience. This means everything from the colors of your ad to the size and style of the font should be carefully considered to create an appealing advertisement.






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