Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing has created a revolution of sorts in the world of physical marketing and is now spreading the same effects in the world of internet marketing. Basically, there are four components or players in an affiliate marketing system, namely the merchant or the retailer, the network, the affiliate or the publisher and the end customer.

The main aim of the merchant is to get the attention of the customer to his or her product, brand or advertisement. For this he creates an affiliate network in which an affiliate with be rewarded in cash or kind for every customer he refers the product to or directs to the website of the merchant or any site relevant to his product or brand.

In the initial days affiliate marketing was only supposed to benefit the advertisers and the merchants but the affiliates have come to realize that there is a chance to earn a huge amount of money that comes through affiliate rewards which include SEM,SEO & PPC. So more and more affiliates are looking for organizations that have quick selling products and give fair returns and to effectively market the links and the sites for the merchants, affiliates in turn are resorting to search engine marketing techniques like Search Engine Optimization, content monitoring, email marketing etc.

The affiliate marketing has benefited a lot from Web 2.0 technology which has led to development of social networking sites and blogging communities.

These have bought the merchants in close contact with the affiliates while giving the affiliates a chance to market the merchant’s product on a wider scale.