So you’ve just gotten into the world of Affiliate Marketing (otherwise known as AM) and wondering where to start? When you know what you’re doing it’s easy, but when you don’t, you may feel slightly overwhelmed by all the information suddenly thrust upon you.

Start learning about affiliate marketing today

What is Affiliate Marketing?

“Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing  practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing effort” (definition by Wikipedia). There are literally tens of thousands of companies wanting you to promote their products online. It can be very profitable when practiced wisely and correctly.  The main goal is to drive visitors to your website in order to get vital clicks on your site’s ads which can be in the form of creative banners, text links, search boxes and product pods amongst others. Shopzilla’s Publisher program has many formats for you to choose from.

How does it work?

As a good affiliate marketer you should have many (if not all) of the following attributes:

• Determination - affiliate marketing does not make you rich overnight. It can be a tiring process that involves determination and hard-work
• Self belief - you have to believe that it will work
• Self discipline - the more often you can write posts/content on your site, the better your site, therefore the higher the likelihood of increased revenue
• Imagination - great content is the key to affiliate marketing. This keeps your visitors coming back for more! Play around with various content and subject ideas, get creative and try out what works best for you and your site
  
• Ability to stick with a project - this ties in with determination; make one project great, rather than lots of little projects average
• Focus - know what you want to write about and stick to it
• Patience - there can often be difficulties and frustrations that you encounter along the way; don’t give up

You will need to be committed as this is a long-term process; remember that you only get paid if and when you deliver results.  Have a look at our SEO (Search Engine optimisation) tips post for more detailed advice on optimising your site.

One of the best tips we can actually give you, is to start off by joining one or two affiliate programs to familiarise yourself with the way it all works, and join those that offer contextually relevant ads. It is widely known that targeting your visitors with ads that correspond to your content or subject area will more than likely increase the chances that your readers will click. If you’re worried about the ethics behind affiliate marketing, however, (a topic often widely debated), you needn’t worry. Follow our ethical hints for peace of mind.

Benefits of affiliate marketing:

• Monetise your website: it may often be a form of passive income - even if you go away on holiday, if you have great content your visitors will still be coming regardless of whether you are online yourself.

• Add shopping content for the readers: this will be useful, especially if you can also provide reviews

• No selling responsibilty: you don’t need to sell your own product but you can make money by promoting those of others. You have no responsibility for the after-sales service or stock and delivery as it is all handled by the merchant.

How do I make money?

You promote products and are rewarded for your efforts. This is all possible because the traffic you send/the sales you make are tracked to you and each affiliates website link is encoded with a unique ID tracking code. This tags the traffic or sale to your account.

It is worth mentioning that many programs operate in different ways and choosing the right one depends on various factors such as the content of your site, the number of visitors you recieve or your own objectives. (*Note: many programs offer efficient reporting tools which make it easy to compare the success off different approaches. Shopzilla tries it’s best to help you compare us against other programs. Read more..) You will undoubtedly have come across the various payment models which include:

1. CPC (cost per click) – The visitor clicks on a link through the affiliate website.

2. CPA (cost per action) – The visitor purchases a product or a service. It could represent any call for action that took place.

- CPL (cost per lead) – The visitor completes a lead form (variant of the CPA model)

- CPS (cost per sale) - The visitor purchases a product or service (variant of the CPA model)

3. CPM (cost per 1000th impression) - The affiliate is paid for every 1000 ad impressions

Depending on the type of program you sign up for, you may experience one or all of these methods.  Experiment and find the best which works for you. It is worth noting that the Shopzilla UK Publisher program pays on a CPC-based model (there aren’t many programs that do offer this) and is free to join so test it out for yourself and see how much you can earn.

It’s a lot to get your head around and there is certainly a vast amount left unsaid. However, keep an eye out for further hints and tips or please feel free to contact us if you have any questions, we will be happy to assist.

Other interesting articles about getting started in affiliate marketing:

• Michelle Croft’s Beginners Guide to Affiliate Marketing

• Affiliate Stuff

• SPI (Beginner’s Guide)

• Beginner’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing

• Online Marketing Leader

Another useful source of information is the IAB Affiliate Handbook.

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