Affiliate Marketing Key Players
Affiliate Marketing has been around for a long time. The Internet Marketers goal is to generate as much traffic to their site as possible and convert a percentage of those visitors into purchasers of either a product, information or services.
There was a time when it was easy to make a living as an affiliate marketer. With the constant changing of the internet the game has proven to be more difficult than it was in the past. The internet is now flooded with affiliate marketers, so the competition is high.
The Key Players in Affiliate Marketing:
Merchant
The Merchant is the player that supplies the product, services or information. They typically offer a percentage of the sale to the affiliate for their part in getting the customer over to the merchants website , if it results in a sale.
Affiliate
The affiliate is often looked at as an expert in the niche that they are promoting. They will typically set up a website that offers their visitors useful information on the product and services of the merchant. If they do a good job it will result in the visitor clicking through a link on their site, to the merchants site. If the visitor makes a purchase, the affiliate receives a percentage of that sale.
Customer
The customer would be the person that is searching for a solution to a problem that he is trying to solve. The customer will do a search using one of the major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. The affiliates job is to offer a solution to the customers existing issue or desire. If they offer an exact solution to the problem, the customer is more likely to make a purchase.
The Network
The Network is a fourth key player. Networks offer as a go-between for both the affiliate and the merchant. They will have a large database of merchants that the affiliate marketer can apply to have a relationship with. The Network will handle all the money of sales that are generated. They handle the tracking of the sales to make sure that the affiliate gets paid.
