Affiliates

We're sure you've heard the term "Affiliate" before and many of you probably know what it means, but for those who don't we are going to explain exactly what an affiliate is.

In the Internet marketing world, you will likely take on the role of an Affiliate unless you own a product, in which case you would be called the Merchant. Affiliates and merchants have a direct relationship and it is very important that the relationship is a good one. The term "affiliate" stems from the fact that you are "affiliated" with a company, and are working for them, though you don't usually have a contract. At any one time, you may be working as an affiliate for many companies, promoting a large number of different products.

Affiliates work for merchants by bringing customers to the merchant's front door (in this case the website) and earning money in the process. If you are an affiliate of a company and you send a visitor to the merchant website through your special link, you are now eligible to be credited for anything that the visitor buys while at the merchant website. When a visitor buys something, the merchant will pay you a commission ...sometimes up to 75% of what the item costs. So, it's simple; as an affiliate, it is your job to get web surfers (traffic) to visit the merchant site.

Why are affiliates important to merchants? If you are a merchant and have a product that you want to sell online, you may not have the expertise to advertise the product online, so you have partnerships with affiliates who will do this for you. You pay your affiliates a percentage for every sale that they generate. As a merchant, you'll get less overall return on investment (ROI), but you will reach potential customers you wouldn't have been able to attract otherwise. Many companies rely completely on their affiliates to bring them business and they are more than happy to pay them for that service.

The relationship between affiliate and merchant is very important. As a merchant, you must provide your affiliates with as much support and as many promotional resources as you can to help them publicize your product. You must also be sure to send out your payments on time. The fastest way to lose affiliates is to not pay on time.