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What is Affiliate Marketing?

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When you want to make money on the internet, one of the most often suggested methods is to use affiliate marketing. But what exactly is affiliate marketing and how can you use it?

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Simply put, affiliate marketing is selling products or services that someone else provide and taking a commission from the sale.

These can be physical products and services, or digital online-only products and services. You’re not in charge of fulfilment, you don’t need to keep stock, you simply need to promote the products or services and get people to buy them.

Most affiliate vendors have very strict rules about what you can and can’t do to promote items, but as long as you stick to the rules, there won’t be a problem. One of the largest affiliate service providers is Amazon, and you can earn a commission on almost any product that Amazon sells – but make sure to declare it is an affiliate offer and maintain compliance with all the appropriate terms and conditions. The last thing you want is to accidentally get your account terminated!

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

In most affiliate programs, the potential buyer is sent to a website that includes a code that identifies the person who sent them there – it’s your own affiliate code. For example, it may be included in the end of the URL as ?source=YOURNAME. Any sales that are tagged with your identification will be credited to your account, and a payment will be sent to you on a predetermined schedule.

Why do Affiliate Marketing?

Some people think that affiliate marketing is a scam as you don’t get the whole amount of money for the sale – you normally only get quite a small percentage. What they are forgetting is that it was never your product to sell – you didn’t develop it, manufacture it, test it, store it, all you did was send people to a website.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to dip into making money online, and requires only minimal outlay – the cost of setting up a website and posting a few messages on social media. Have you had success with affiliate marketing or is it something you want to get started with?

Find out how to become a super affiliate by getting the Super Affiliate Survival Guide here!