Whenever building and running an affiliate network on the Internet, context is king. So what is affiliate marketing? It's when a merchant pays a Web site owner for producing sales from a button, banner or link placed on the owner's Web site.
This marketing form is the latest buzz in Internet retailing, and accounts for 11 percent of customer transactions this year, and a predicted $9 billion of online shopping revenue .nine bookseller Amazon. started the trend and today has around affiliates. By some estimates, more than online retailers say they have or are going to build an affiliate network in the next six months.
According to online marketing analysts, the key to success is contextual selling, for more help visit to: www.ppc-profit-marketer.com. which is integrating products or services into targeted Web sites where content and commerce are logical partners.
Selling in context successfully increases conversion to sale, note most analysts, "If you just have a button on the page, a lot of people will ignore it. But if you have two or three products imbedded in or after an article that follows the same theme, you± e much more likely to drive a transaction."
To make it simple, if you want to sell kayaking equipment, a good affiliate might be a site on wilderness treks. If your product is travel, go to a weather-related website. And, if you± e selling red wine, look for gourmet food. Many web observers note that affiliate marketing is truly effective for moving customers off the dime, or transitioning a user from a having a thought to taking an action.
Veterans in the affiliate industry offer three pieces of advice for aspiring affiliate marketers, in order for them to succeed in this relatively new and exciting field.
First, it would be good to identify a strategy and decide whether your approach is reach or conversion. Expert marketers would refer to a å µold & plenty model, where you either go after a targeted number of affiliates with a high conversion rate, or seek a large volume of partners to spread your brand. Most experts suggest that you need some combination of the two.
Second, set up a tiered payment structure, or bounty, that rewards better-performing affiliates with bigger commissions, where affiliates would be able to make commissions ranging from 3 to 25 percent of the sale. Third, you need to market your affiliate program heavily, in order to attract a larger number of targeted consumers.
Marketing experts note that the relationship between the merchant and the affiliate is an important aspect in running an effective program. Remember to keep in constant communication with your affiliates, via email and phone calls. Understand where they are in their program development cycle and help them through it.
Second, it is wise to say "Thank you" every step of the way, and be timely: recognize and acknowledge your affiliates successes when it happens.
For more help visit to: www.boost-website-traffic.com.As they start to perform, start considering raising your affiliates' commission as a way to motivate them.