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A Newbie’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing
If you’re fairly new to affiliate marketing you may have noticed that some of the terminology can be somewhat confusing. I thought I’d do my best to demystify some of the language for you.
Affiliate marketing itself is the business of marketing other people’s products and services in exchange for a reward – usually money!
You can be an affiliate directly for a company who offers their product or service or you can get registered with some of the various affiliate marketing networks. These affiliate networks have made a business of matching up advertisers and publishers.
The advertisers are paying the publishers a commission to go out and market and sell for them. The publishers are those who specialize in the advertising and marketing of products and services on the internet.
This gives the advertisers a huge pool of publishers to introduce their products to and it give publishers a place to search for products and services that they would like to market online. This way you can search for products that are a good fit for your website and/or your target audience.
Whether you are working directly with the product company or through a network make sure you understand the terms of service before you get started. You will be required to get registered with them – providing your personal information including your social security number. Some companies will have you also fill out a W-9 upon registration so that once your commission reaches $600 they can send you a 1099 for tax purposes. Remember, you are not an employee for any of these companies so you will need to keep track of your income for tax purposes.
Each program should clearly state what and how you will be paid to perform certain tasks.
You will usually be paid per sale, per lead and/or per action. A sale is a completed sale of a product. Per lead is basically where you drive traffic to an opt-in page and your referrals sign up to find out more about the product or service. Per action is where your referral performs a certain action such as: filling out a survey, applying for something like a credit card offer, or signing up for something like a singles site. Some of these per action offers are free and some of them require your referral to pay something … like maybe a free learning CD but they pay the shipping cost.
You will get paid a flat sales commission rate, a percentage of sale rate, a recurring/ongoing sales commission, or a fee for a specific action. There are all kinds of variations of these too. You might be paid a flat sales commission and a recurring commission for every month that your referral remains a monthly subscriber. You might make a certain fee if your referral fills out page one of a form, another if they advance to page two, and so on. It’s important to get familiar with the different methods of payment rewards and understand them completely.
Another way to earn with your affiliate marketing business is to refer other publishers to the affiliate program or affiliate marketing network. An example of this is PepperJam Network is currently paying their publishers a $7.00 referral commission (normally $5.00) and MarketLeverage pays their publishers 5% commission on all of their referrals’ commission earned. For instance, if you were to use my link and sign up with PepperJam Network to also be a publisher I would be paid $7.00 (right now you would also be paid $10.00 ~ just for signing up!). If you decided to use my link to get signed up with MarketLeverage I would be paid 5% of your total monthly commissions and you would get the same for your referrals. Pretty cool huh?
I would love to answer any questions you have about affiliate marketing so just ask away!
Are you an affiliate marketer? Do you prefer working directly with the product company or working through an affiliate network? What are you favorite affiliate networks? Do you market products, services, CPA’s or what? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below. *SmiLes* Suzanne
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19 Comments
MLMike
on 28th Oct, 08 10:10am
Thanks for supporting MarketLeverage, Suzanne – this post is really good. You’ve got some great insight about how the industry works! As always, if I can help you out, just let me know – thanks!
Dennis Edell
on 28th Oct, 08 10:10am
Very well laid out Suz, impressive
This might do well under some sort of resource page. Especially if you *series* it somehow.
OT – Which related posts plugin are you using? I’m have a devil of a time finding one that actually works.
Suzanne
on 28th Oct, 08 12:10pm
@ mike ~ thanks for stopping by and for your support. i’ve really wanted to learn more about your offerings at market leverage … and i really love getting the emails you send out. let me know if you are able to go over my sites with me and maybe make some suggestions for what offers would work best for each. i’ll send you an email hopefully this week.
@ dennis ~ thank you too for the kind words. i read a great post about setting up a series … i’ll have to dig that out
as for the plugin *sigh* i’m using “similar posts” but i’ve also heard that “yet another related post plugin” is good too. when i first changed to this theme i couldn’t get the plugin in to work. i deleted and re-installed, i upgraded, and waited and nothing! one day i scrolled down … and there they were! i couldn’t believe it … and i can’t answer why either. lol. what is yours “doing” or “not doing”???
Dennis Edell
on 28th Oct, 08 12:10pm
I’m not sure if this is what you meant, but there is a series plugin that apparently puts posts together nicely.
ironically i just installed the “yet another related post plugin” and there is some amazing features…a helluva options setup page though lol, this may take some time.
Jake
on 29th Oct, 08 07:10am
I had to switch from the “similar posts” plug-in to the “yet another related post plugin”. The similar post plug-in was doing something weird. When activated, it would insert a at the end of the last paragraph of my post and take away the . Which left the paragraph open. ?? Weird…..
Good info Suzanne!
Jake
on 29th Oct, 08 07:10am
hmm, looks like my comment didn’t post what i typed.. but basically it would insert a “page break” command and take away the “close paragraph” command.
Yan Shall Blog
on 30th Oct, 08 04:10am
Hey Suzanne
Your article is awesome indeed and very useful for new affiliate marketers. It covers almost the basics of what we need to know. In fact, affiliate marketing is the way to go.
Yan
Mitch
on 30th Oct, 08 11:10am
Nicely written. Of course I participate in a bunch of different affiliate marketing groups, and the one thing I’ve found is really important, which I didn’t do but I’m doing now, is keeping up with all the different usernames and passwords; oy! lol
Suzanne
on 30th Oct, 08 11:10am
@ dennis ~ yes, thanks, I’ve heard about that but one of our online buddies (JT) did a great series (LOL) of posts on how to do it too here: http://www.jtpratt.com/wordpress-hack-20-how-to-setup-a-post-series-in-wordpress/ but he’s pretty techie so I probably need the plugin LOL
@ jake ~ I am going to try to add that code to your comment so others can see it …
@ yan ~ thanks! and I agree that it’s the way to go too … I love looking for new products that get raving reviews to share with others.
@ mitch ~ glad to have you and thanks for your comments … you brought up a GREAT point! I finally started keeping a spreadsheet with not only my affiliate programs and products but for all of my logins and such. It has saved me … truly! *SmiLes* Suzanne
Dennis Edell
on 30th Oct, 08 02:10pm
I’d like to hear more about this spreadsheet for affiliate stuff.
Mitch
on 30th Oct, 08 02:10pm
I tend to keep all my passwords in a Word document; have for, well, over a decade at this juncture. But for all my different websites, I keep Excel spreadsheets for each one of them, telling me which ads I have on which pages.
CoffeeTweak
on 4th Nov, 08 06:11pm
Hi Suzanne,
You have my vote. Looks great! Best of luck to you!
Suzanne
on 4th Nov, 08 06:11pm
@ coffeetweak ~ thanks! i really appreciate it … let me know if i can return the favor! *huGs* S
Kenny
on 7th Nov, 08 02:11pm
Gret post for people looking to be their feet wet in affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make a income online.
Kenny’s last blog post..Focus Forward Online Survey Panel Review
Moglie | affiliateways101.com
on 11th Nov, 08 02:11am
I really like your step by step explanations, and the definitions you have written about.
Easy to understand and a must know for all beginners/newbies in the Affiliate Marketing business.
Keep up the good work it will help all us ‘newbies’ a lot.
moglie@affiliateways101.com
Moglie | affiliateways101.com’s last blog post..Broke and Hopeless?-There is money to be made with Affiliate Marketing,
Codrut Turcanu / Easy Article Writing
on 26th Nov, 08 03:11am
Cool tips! I wonder when an “advanced” series will follow?
Make Money Online
on 5th Mar, 09 11:03pm
Nice,
Easy to understand and a must know for all beginners/newbies in the Affiliate Marketing business
A Nahwi
on 17th Mar, 09 06:03pm
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future. Thank you
ssn search
on 22nd Mar, 09 06:03pm
had to switch from the “similar posts” plug-in to the “yet another related post plugin”. The similar post plug-in was doing something weird. When activated, it would insert a at the end of the last paragraph of my post and take away the . Which left the paragraph open. ?? Weird…..
Good info Suzanne!