Affiliate Marketing 101

Affiliate Marketing 101

 Affiliate marketing programs are a great way to get

income for your website, and a great introduction

to e-commerce.  The more people that drop by your

website, the great your chance will be at creating

an excellent income.


Affiliate marketing programs are where a company

offers to pay you a set amount for either a click

through from your website, or a set amount for

visitors signing up, or even a percentage of a

purchase made by visitors as a result of being

referred from your website.


Even if visitors don't make a purchase immediately,

almost all programs offer cookie duration, normally

consisting of 30 - 90 days.  What this means, is

that as long as the visitors have the cookie in

their cache, you'll still recieve a profit from 

the sale.  


The biggest amount of time in maintaining your 

site will be searching and implementing affiliations

with various companies.  Even though there's a lot

of money in affiliate marketing, you have to take

the time to search for the best programs.


One thing that you may not be happy with, is the

idea of other companies banners littering your

website.  If you use too many banners or links on

any web page, it can confuse and help to irritate

your visitors.  More than one animated element on

a web page can be very distracting as well.


Affiliate tracking can also be a problem.  Once

you have applied to become an affiliate for a 

company, they'll usually supply you with a 

personalized link or code.  It's very important 

that you implement this code into your page 

correctly, or you may be sending visitors to the

company without recieving any profit.


A majority of snippets in the code will contain 

a unique user ID, which the company uses to 

distinguish which site sent traffic.