What is Affiliate Marketing & How You can Make Money!

You've probably heard of money making opportunities with Affiliate Marketing but you are not quite for sure what it is, how it works or how to get started. 

In this article I would like to share with you what affiliate marketing is, how it works and point you in the right direction in getting started with generating passive income through Affiliate Marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?
It is a type of marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought to them by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. There are primarily 4 core players in affiliate marketing and they are as follows:

1.The Merchant(also known as "retailer or brand")
2.The Network(that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments)
3.The Affiliate
4.The Customer

The Merchant: 

The Merchant is relatively easy to understand. The merchant can be Amazon, Best buy, Target, etc. Not every company has an affiliate program though. 

One way to see if a company has an affiliate program is to type in the Merchant's name into a search engine like Google, followed by the phrase affiliate program, for instance you would type in amazon affiliate program. 

The search engine should list a link to Amazon's affiliate program. Follow this same procedure for any merchant in which you would like to see if they have an affiliate program.
 

The Network: 

An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between affiliates and merchant affiliate programs.
 

The Affiliate: 

You would be the affiliate, the person who would promote and advertise for the Merchant, thereby, you will receive some type of commission for recommending their products and services. 

In order to know what you can expect, for as compensation, you must read through the affiliate program for the merchant you would like to be an affiliate with. Some affiliate programs pay more than others. 

One very important key in deciding which affiliate program you would like to join, is to let it be relative to the content on your website. For example if your website is dedicated to electronic products then try to find affiliate programs that deal in electronic products and services. 

The Customer: 

The customer is the one who will click on the affiliate link you posted on your website and hopefully make a purchase from a particular merchant.

The Benefits of Generating Passive Income as an Affiliate!
•You can potentially generate many passive income streams through joining several affiliate programs, just ensure the affiliate programs are relative to your content.
•Affiliate programs are legitimate and not scams.
•Joining an affiliate program is absolutely free.
•It is a very low maintenance way of generating passive income.
•You don't have to be present to make money.


wealthyaffiliate.com/ccj/blog/what-is-affiliate-marketing-and-how-you-can-make-money

The Role Of Content In Performance Marketing!

February 2011 is perhaps the starting point for any discussion of the current role of content in performance marketing. 

Google’s then roll out of the Panda update was the search giant’s first systemic step towards emphasising the value of pure, quality content in terms of its rankings and which penalised what it deemed ‘thin sites’, low on quality and sometimes guilty of ‘black hat’ tactics that attempted to manipulate their way to the top of valuable search queries. 

For both advertisers and publishers alike, this was a new dawn and the upshot was that many brands were forced to rethink their approach online, moving content plans to the very core of their online and indeed affiliate strategy. 

Whilst the initial rollout saw varying degrees of collateral damage with some unwarranted casualties seeing huge drop-offs in their natural traffic, the update seems to have had the desired effect and forced all digital natives to place a new value on providing content for their audiences that is both relevant and valuable. 

This is equally true within the performance marketing channel, and if anything, has arguably added a new legitimacy to an environment which may previously have been seen by some as slightly murky; littered with banner farms, keyword-stuffed review sites and dodgy discount code providers. 

Now, to ensure consistent traffic levels, affiliate sites of all persuasions are compelled to think of their audiences rather than their rankings first, and to consider what value they can add to the customer journey. 

Though some may always see the repositioning of the search goalposts as a negative, the focus on content by Google has to some extent been a boon to affiliates who are in the perfect position to take advantage of it. 

As independent mediators between consumers and brands their notional objectivity and insight is precisely what online users demand during the pre-purchase phase of the customer journey. Content marketing provides the perfect tool for affiliates to exploit this. 

It is by no means an easy task, but by producing a consistent stream of relevant, valuable and insightful content on a subject area, affiliates can benefit in various ways. They can develop trust with their audience, engage new traffic niches, foster relationships and generate links and referrals from other authoritative sources.  

Content affiliates can also develop their own brand identity and personality, and by doing so encourage the ‘virality’ of the content they share. There is much to be gained, and in a back-to-front kind of way all this can culminate in ever greater performance for both affiliates and the brands they work with. 

Invariably the traffic coming their way is more numerous, more qualified and more disposed to converting. The subsequent updates that Google has rolled out since 2011 have sought to refine and extend much of what the original Panda update started. 

With an ever more nuanced understanding of what users are searching for online the role of content has changed dramatically and for affiliates and their brand partners it is an essential component of any effective performance marketing relationship. 

http://performancein.com/news/2014/09/15/role-content-performance-marketing/