Brought to you by Sudarmaji Lamiran http://Smartway4Profit.com Online Store For Softwares, eBooks, Templates, Articles. Updated Monthly! Stay informed! Subscribe to http://SmartwayZine.com #1 Newsletter for The Smartest Internet Marketers! It’s YOU!
And Get Lifetime Free Access To: http://SmartwayMembership.com
This is a free ebook. You do have the right either to sell this ebook or to give it free. In short do whatever you want unless make any changes of the contents. DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: The information presented in this ebook represents the views of the publisher as of the date of publication. The publisher reserves the rights to alter and update their opinions based on new conditions. This ebook is for informational purposes only. The author and the publisher do not accept any responsibilities for any liabilities resulting from the use of this information. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided here, the author and the publisher cannot assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any similarities with people or facts are unintentional. No part of this ebook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without expressed written, dated and signed permission from the publisher.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 2 of 16
Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online
Chapter 1: What is Affiliate Marketing? Chapter 2: The Different Types of Affiliate Marketing Chapter 3: The Advantages of Affiliate Marketing Chapter 4: Is Google’s AdSense Affiliate Marketing? Chapter 5: Is Affiliate Marketing the Same as Multi-level Marketing? Chapter 6: Increasing Online Sales through Affiliate Marketing Chapter 7: Affiliate Marketing and Revenue Sharing Chapter 8: Affiliate Marketing - The Step-child of Online Marketing Chapter 9: Affiliate Marketing – Simple, Yet Effective Chapter 10: Affiliate Marketing – Highly Cost Effective, Highly Efficient Chapter 11: Affiliate Marketing – Consistent and Profitable
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 3 of 16
Chapter 1: What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is a way of promoting online business through affiliate programs and advertising that pay the affiliate (or publisher) a type of commission based on the amount of business their website brings the merchant company. It’s a form of revenue sharing or commission based advertising. The term “affiliate marketing,” however, is often associated with network marketing or multi-level marketing and therefore many companies prefer to use the term “performance marketing”. Affiliate marketing is the most cost effective sort of marketing there is, and is actually incredibly efficient. For this reason, many companies (especially those that started in the early days of e-commerce) owe a tremendous amount to affiliate marketing (Amazon is a good example) and it has now become normal for companies to include affiliate marketing in many of their plans. There are three types of compensation methods that are associated with affiliated marketing. The first type is Cost per Click (CPC) or Cost per Mil (CPM.) Basically, the affiliate earns by how many clicks the advertising on his/her site generates, or by just having the advert published on the website. But because of click fraud and many other questionable tactics, CPC is no longer the general form used for affiliate marketing. Generally, companies now either use CPA (Cost per Action) or CPS (Cost per Sale.) The first is based on how much the advert generates interest by the clicker to actually buy or register at the advertised site, the second is based strictly on sales. In other words, an affiliate is paid if the clicker actually purchases something on the advertised site.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 4 of 16
Chapter 2: The Different Types of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a broad term that refers to a sort of on-line revenue share scheme, involving advertising and selling. It dates back to late 1994, when many e-commerce sites started employing the system and finding that it produces fantastic results. Currently, affiliate marketing is actually a serious player within e-commerce strategy. When an affiliate joins in with an e-commerce merchant of some sort (be it a subscription service, a shopping site etc…) payment is received through referrals done from the affiliate’s website – done through the following methods : 1) Pay-per click systems : basically, the affiliate displays adverts on their site and is paid when a customer or internet user clicks on that website 2) RSS feeds or blogs – even personal sites can sit under this category. Blogging is fast becoming a staple form of marketing and promotion, and affiliate marketing partners well with this form of online communication 3) Comparison sites and shopping directories – such as review sites or legit advertising sites 4) Loyalty sites – this is when a reward system is in place via a cash back or points back system (or charitable donations) 5) Coupon sites that focus strictly on marketing and promotions
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 5 of 16
6) Email lists – legit email lists to subscribers of the affiliate’s website etc – NOT spam 7) A registration path – when a person registers with a specific site, be it for a newsletter or subscription, offers from other companies are represented and advertised 8) Networks – there are many affiliate marketing networks. Some even function on a multi-tier or multi-level marketing sort of set up.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 6 of 16
Chapter 3: The Advantages of Affiliate Marketing
The concept of revenue sharing has been around for quite a while, long before the internet. But the idea of affiliate marketing has taken it to new levels, and become a staple form of advertising and bringing in business for all types of e-commerce. Online merchants find affiliate marketing highly advantageous due to the fact that it presents little to no risk both for the merchant and the ‘affiliate.’ The way it works is that the affiliate earns a type of commission or fixed amount based on the number of sales the affiliate brings to the merchant, either through on-line links on the affiliates website – or through email, blogs, rss feeds and many other kinds of on-line communication. Some merchants (only about 1% of affiliate marketing) use a cost-per-click remuneration system, which simply means that the affiliate earns every time an internet searcher clicks on an advert on their site or email. However, due to fraudsters taking advantage of this method (creating ad-ware, sending spam, or useless indexing sites) this form of remuneration is not preferred and becomes too risky for merchants to use. Affiliate marketing also bears no cost on the merchant in the original set-up – in other words, it costs nothing to place advertising banners on affiliate’s sites, and there is only a cost if a lead or sale has been generated (which is advantageous for all.) Merchants also get to set the parameters, and decide on the incentive schemes. Thus, it is a very inexpensive (but highly efficient way) to grow a business.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 7 of 16
Chapter 4: Is Google’s AdSense Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing refers to a method of advertising, selling and marketing products on-line through an affiliate program where a webmaster joins in with a merchant to sell their product. It is a highly efficient, yet cost friendly way to create both awareness and sales of a particular website, brand or product. The affiliate (or publisher) will either display adverts, or make use of blogs, rss feeds, emails or other means to either refer to the merchant’s product, or at least provide exposure to the merchant that will benefit both parties. The benefit the affiliate receives is a commission or revenue based payment for every sale that has come through the affiliate’s website. Some, however, work on a pay-per-click system – where the affiliate receives money through every click to a site that has come through his/her website. However, the preferred way of remuneration is rather cost-per-sale, or cost per action, which means the affiliate receives remuneration for an actual sale or subscription referred from his/her site. Affiliate marketing started just four years after the world wide web was birthed (1994) and many popular and successful e-commerce websites owe a large part of their success to the program (namely, Amazon and others.) Affiliate marketing, however, should not be confused with multi-level marketing, although many multi-level or network marketing companies do make use of a similar method for on-line marketing. Google’s AdSense is also not considered Affiliate Marketing (though, it is an example in some sense) because it makes use of contextual advertising.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 8 of 16
Chapter 5: Is Affiliate Marketing the Same as Multi-level Marketing?
The most efficient and cost effective sort of advertising known today is called “Affiliate Marketing” - a form of revenue share and online advertising that works very well. Basically, a webmaster is paid by a company to display adverts on his/her site – either by the amount of clicks that advert receives or the amount of actual sales the advert generates. Generally, the latter is the preferred type of affiliate marketing, presenting little to no risk whatsoever for both the company wishing to sell its services/product, and the affiliate. Affiliate marketing should not be confused with multi-level-marketing (MLM) or network marketing, although many companies do make use of online network marketing techniques. Affiliate marketing works differently, though, in the sense that the webmaster himself (the affiliate) earns an income, and does not sign up or register anyone into the program himself. Both forms can produce a large revenue for both parties, but multi-level marketing is an entirely different subject. There are some pros and cons to affiliate marketing, but most of the advantages weigh out the disadvantages. The only real disadvantage of the program is that it is not easily scalable, and many bad management techniques have led to adware, false advertising, spam or “spamdexing” which is a website that consists only of advertising, and no real content. These kinds of sites often just produce pop-ups and link to further types of useless sites. But because of the rise of blogs and the like, these kinds of issues are getting less.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 9 of 16
Chapter 6: Increasing Online Sales through Affiliate Marketing
One of the most tried, trusted, and beneficial ways of increasing online sales through marketing and advertising is affiliate marketing. This is basically a revenue share sort of system, where an affiliate is given a form of commission from a merchant, based on how many sales the affiliate has generated through advertising on his/her site. Affiliate marketing began just four years after the world-wide web was launched, and many successful ecommerce sites owe much to this simple yet effective method. There are three types of affiliate marketing methods of payment – either pay-per-click (generated by actual clicks or referrals to the merchant from the affiliate’s site), pay-per-action or pay-per-sale (very similar, in that the affiliate receives payment, either a fixed amount or commission, based on the sales or subscriptions that have come through referrals or adverts on the affiliate’s site.) The last two methods of payment are generally preferred by merchants, due to many fraudsters taking advantage of the click system and setting up sites with forced clicks, pop-ups, adware, spam, false advertising and many other “black hat” techniques. Affiliate marketing is not limited to only display-adverts on an affiliate site, but also comes in the form of email, blogs, rss feeds, content and niche sites, loyalty sites, comparison sites or shopping directories, and other forms. It is an extremely low cost, but highly effective form of marketing and advertising, presenting little to no risk for both the merchant and the affiliate.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 10 of 16
Chapter 7: Affiliate Marketing and Revenue Sharing
Affiliate marketing refers to an incentive scheme set-up by online merchants to generate sales and grow their business. Basically, those who sign up as an ‘affiliate’ with the merchant receive revenue share, sales commission, or a fixed rate depending on the parameters that the merchant has set up. The most common schemes are the Cost-Per-Action (CPA) and Cost-per-sale (CPS) schemes – meaning that an affiliate is remunerated from a referral to the merchant only if the customer/internet user buys or subscribes to the merchant’s website. Some incentive schemes work on a Cost-Per-Click basis (CPC) which means that the affiliate earns when an advert is just clicked upon (or the user is redirected in some way from the affiliate’s website or email to the merchant.) This is also closely linked in with the Cost-per-mil (CPM) method, where the affiliate is paid for just displaying the adverts on their site. Although these two methods only account for 1% of affiliate marketing, due to many fraudsters taking advantage of it and therefore becoming too risky for the merchant. The more common CPA/CPS schemes mentioned above bare no risk at all to the merchant. Affiliate marketing owes its roots to the revenue sharing idea that has been around long before the internet. The success of those companies proves in many ways the success of the affiliate marketing system. Affiliate marketing can sometimes be confused with Google’s AdSense scheme, which is not entirely the same. Google’s AdSense works with contextual advertising, and is not considered true Affiliate Marketing.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 11 of 16
Chapter 8: Affiliate Marketing - The Step-child of Online Marketing
The real step-child of online marketing is affiliate marketing, a tried and trusted method for creating sales and advertising websites or products online. Many e-commerce sites owe a great deal to affiliate marketing methods – namely Amazon and CDNOW’s WebBuy system. Affiliate marketing is a highly efficient way to create brand awareness and generate leads and business. Affiliate marketing encourages ‘affiliates’ to sell or advertise a
merchant’s products by means of a revenue share or commission system. In the early days of the web when affiliate marketing started (about late 1994) most merchants made use of a Cost-Per-Click system (known as CPC or CPM) where an affiliate made money from every click to the merchant’s website generated from the affiliate’s site. Because of bad management and many fraudsters taking advantage of this system in various ways, only about 1% of affiliate marketing is now done this way. 80% of affiliate marketing is now on a cost-per-sale basis, where the affiliate receives commission for every actual SALE generated on the merchant’s site that is due to a referral from the affiliate – and the last 19% of affiliate marketing is on a cost-peraction basis, where the affiliate receives a revenue-share if the person referred from their site actually subscribes or registers with the merchant’s website. Affiliate marketing is done through different types of techniques or publisher websites - blogs and RSS feeds becoming quite a predominant method, as well as shopping and comparison websites, loyalty websites and others.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 12 of 16
Chapter 9: Affiliate Marketing – simple, yet effective
Affiliate Marketing has increasingly become an integrated and large part of a company’s marketing plans – most notably for companies that wish to use the internet to gain revenue or sell products. For this reason, ecommerce owes much of its rise to the idea of affiliated marketing, which includes websites such as CDNOW (BuyWeb) or Amazon. The idea of affiliated marketing is profoundly simple yet incredibly effective. Basically, a webmaster will display a merchant’s adverts on a site, and be paid for those websites in one of three ways. Either, he will be paid per click (known as Cost-per-click, CPC for short) which means that every time the advert is clicked, the affiliate is paid. This is not the favored form of affiliate marketing due to many fraud click sites, the rise of adware, and other fraudulent schemes. Another method of payment is Cost-per-Action (CPA) which is when the affiliate receives income based on either a sale, registration, or the ‘action’ of the person who has clicked the advert from the affiliate’s site. The last form – and most favored form – is the Cost-per-sale method (CPS) which is based solely upon sales or purchases generated on the merchant’s site, that have come through the affiliated site. CPA and CPS are very similar in this respect, and represent a form of revenue sharing or commission plan. Affiliate marketing has many benefits for both the affiliate and the merchant, one being that there are no real risks at all for both parties – and both parties find it very beneficial. Merchants enjoy affiliate marketing, and it has become a favored form of advertising for e-commerce business.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 13 of 16
Chapter 10: Affiliate Marketing – Highly Cost Effective, Highly Efficient
The Internet has fast become an efficient and trusted way for companies to market and sell their product. One of the reasons for this has been the rise of “Affiliated Marketing” - which is when a website directs traffic to itself through adverts on other (usually related) websites. Affiliated marketing either pays the affiliate through a pay-per-click program (the affiliate receives money every time an advert is clicked) or a pay-per-sale program (the affiliate receives commission every time a posted advert on their site generates an actual sale or subscription.) Generally, the pay-per-sale program (also called cost-per-sale, or CPS) is the tried and trusted form of affiliate marketing used. Affiliate marketing began just four years after the world wide web was launched, originally popularized by well known companies such as CDNOW or Amazon. Google’s Adsense is also a very well known type of affiliated marketing, but is not really considered as true affiliate marketing as the adverts usually centers around the theme of the website they are displayed (known more as contextual advertising.) Google does not also directly sell a specific product, but generates money in other ways. Affiliate marketing is highly cost-effective, and in effect costs both the advertiser and the affiliate nothing, while having the potential of bringing in a very large form of income for both parties. While pay per click (or cost-perclick) mentioned above can present a risk to the advertiser, the cost-per-sale (CPS) system has very little or no risk at all for both parties, and is therefore preferred.
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 14 of 16
Chapter 11: Affiliate Marketing – Consistent and Profitable
In November 1994, just after the world wide web was born, a company called CDNOW came up with an online way of selling called “BuyWeb” – a click through purchasing set-up that functioned independently from the storefront. This was the first profitable form of affiliate marketing, and many other online and e-commerce sites soon followed suite with similar programs (Amazon being an example.) Affiliate Marketing has now become a consistent method of advertising and selling, and now forms a large part of many company’s marketing strategies. It is cheap, effective, and has little to no risk for all involved. Traditionally, affiliate marketing functioned on cost-per-click systems, which means that the ‘affiliate’ was paid for every advert or email clicked on or from their website. However, due to many fraudsters taking advantage of this system by using spam techniques, doing false advertising, creating adware, using forced click techniques, doing SEO ‘keyword stuffing’, using tracking cookies and many similar techniques, the cost-per click system is not as popular as it once was. Merchants now rather use CPA (Cost-peraction) or CPS (cost-per-sale) techniques. These methods present little to no risk for both the merchant and the affiliate, and are therefore preferred. However, Google’s new Latent Semantic Indexing could mean that CPS will become risk free as well (Latent Semantic Indexing will automatically fish out websites with nonsensical content, or that have keyword stuffing or are advertising sites that are not comparison or shopping sites.)
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 15 of 16
Resources Turbo Membership The best membership for Internet Marketers by John Delavera. Social Bookmarking Secrets A superb and complete guide on how to use Social Bookmarking to make money online Fantasos The next generation of Internet Marketing and the best ecommerce platform by John Delavera
This free report is brought to you by:
http://SmartwayZine.com
Smartway4Profit - Affiliate Marketing: The Simple Yet Fastest Way to Make Money Online Page 16 of 16