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What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a model of advertising where a third-party publisher is compensated by a company for generating traffic or leads to the company’s products and services. For example, this article is a form affiliate marketing being provided on behalf of TIAT. While it tells you enough information about affiliate marketing, it also directs the reader to TIAT affiliate marketing platform.
These third-party publishers are considered the affiliate marketer and are compensated a royalty or commission fee associated with clicks, sign-ups, or sales.
Affiliate marketing has been around since well before the Internet. In this digital age affiliate marketing has now become a billion-dollar industry. Analytics and cookies allow a company to track the links that generate leads and see how many converts into sales from affiliate marketers.
The most common use of affiliate marketing today is when an e-commerce merchant (like TIAT) is wanting to reach a wider customer base or generate more traffic. An affiliate marketer can be the owner of websites, email lists, or really any form of published material. The fact is, the more content an affiliate owns, the wider the affiliate’s network is. Affiliate marketers can promote a product through their network in many ways, like: sending emails; posting links on their webpages; running ad banners; text ad campaigns; or social media and YouTube content. (Such as this video below.) Some of the most effective forms of current day advertising are articles, videos, and images that capture an audience’s attention and direct them to products and /or services.
The Internet has increased the visibility of affiliate marketing advertising and has also made it so anyone can be an affiliate marketer. TIAT is helping to popularize affiliate marketing programs, by providing a new platform where websites and bloggers can link their audience to TIAT. If the linked user signs up and uses the TIAT Platform for logistics services, the Affiliate receives a .5% royalty on the amount of every transaction their account is associated with. Basically, we offer a pay-per-performance marketing platform, where the act of selling can be performed by non-employee, everyday people.
The Goal of Affiliate Marketing
When it comes to affiliate marketing the goal is to create a win-win situation for both a company and an affiliate. Affiliate marketing has become an increasingly popular way to increase sales with a unique and profitable system.
The digital age and ever improving technologies are making it easier to incorporate affiliate marketing strategies. It also has improved how companies track and pay royalties and commissions for qualified leads. This also contributes to how companies improve their products and market position.
If you are interested in pursuing the path of an affiliate marketer, it is best to fully understand what that involves. For companies the benefits include its low cost, high level of effectiveness, and increases in brand awareness and the company’s customer base.
There are different types of Affiliate Marketing
There are three main types of Affiliate Marketing: Involved Affiliate Marketing, Related Affiliate Marketing, and Unattached Affiliate Marketing.
- Involved Affiliate Marketing: This is basically a user of a product or service who is also an affiliate. This provides a deeper connection between the affiliate and the product. Generally, they have used or are currently using the product they are endorsing, giving them a level of confidence in wanting to share a positive user experience. Their experience is the advertisement serving as a trusted source of information. The drawback is the affiliate’s reputation is usually on the line and can be compromised depending on what product they market.
- Related Affiliate Marketing: This is, in more cases than not, part of a strategic partnership agreement. Generally, this affiliate marketer is providing a supporting product or service. This gives that affiliate the active expertise that can influence their network to use a product. By leveraging their level of authority and experience, they can generate traffic as they are viewed as a trusted source. These affiliates generally do not offer claims about a product or service.
- Unattached Affiliate Marketing: This is usually when the affiliate has no connections with the product or services they are promoting. So, in most cases these affiliates will make no claims to the product and its use. This is the most uninvolved form of affiliate marketing. While it can generate sales, it is not as effective as the others.
Here are some pro's & con's
While affiliate marketing can generate great rewards for the marketer, mainly in the form of monetary gains, the company benefits from the creative marketing efforts of affiliate marketers as well. The return on investment for affiliate marketing is high. While the cost of advertising is borne by the affiliate, the company pays on the associated sales.
Affiliate marketing programs in the early stages of the internet were subject to fraud – mainly from software that could generate clicks and impressions. In the early days it was also expensive, with pay-per-click and cost per-mile banners making it where advertising companies named their terms.
Coming into the present day, most affiliate marketing programs have set strict terms on how leads are generated and paid out. Some affiliate marketing platforms tell the affiliate how to advertise, what lay-out to utilize, and which topics about products and services they must cover before they can even provide their affiliate code. There are even some methods for advertising that are banned, like installing adware or spyware redirecting queries to products.
Forward thinking is required to create an effective affiliate marketing platform. All terms and conditions must be spelled out, especially if a contract agreement pays based on traffic rather than sales. Although affiliate marketing is becoming more mainstream, fraud is still a major concern for both affiliates and companies.
For companies the main concern is domain squatters who charge for redirects and software that auto-fills fields with fake or stolen information. These squatters will purchase AdWords for select terms for search engines that misdirect the real company’s traffic. Even with clear terms and conditions for affiliate programs, companies usually will appoint someone to manage their affiliate programs.
TIAT's Affiliate Marketing Platform
Since this article is sponsored by TIAT, it is only fair this article discusses TIAT’s Affiliate Marketing Platform. Before we do that, here are some of the most successful affiliate marketing programs. First, we have Amazon, which is a merchant-based affiliate program. Then there are Etsy and e-Bay, which are very similar to Amazon. Buzzfeed has a pretty good affiliate program that is almost in line with TIAT’s Platform.
TIAT Affiliate Marketing Platform has the potential to rival the largest affiliate marketing programs available today. TIAT has one main product: shipment logistics! TIAT also offers their platform free. Which means there are no sales; it is based on valid users. Affiliates are given freedom in creation of content, within limitations of decency of course.
TIAT Affiliate program has an easy sign-up process, you are required to pay your own taxes. When it comes to starting expenses, I do not get charged a dime to create my content, it’s 100% free!
TIAT pays a royalty of .5% of every transaction or every affiliated user. Let’s run the numbers. Average freight cost is at $2.98 a mile. It would take a driver 1 day to drop and hook a load 400 mile away. The average freight travels 450 miles in America. That means the Affiliate would make $5.96 for that one driver. If they did five runs in the week you would make $29.80 a week just for that referral. Now let’s turn this into some real money. 50 driver referrals can equate to $100,000 a year! One Affiliate I know has a following of over 600 and with confirmed affiliate association of over 300 users. This guy could clear around $600k a year easy and all he has is a YouTube Channel and social media. So, while .5% does not sound like much, it can add up quick.
facts
Affiliate Marketers are paid handsomely
Affiliate marketers are generally paid in the form of a royalty of commission for referrals or sales of a product or service. These royalties and commissions can range all the way up to 20% or more, depending on the affiliate marketing program.
According to business insider
15% of e-commerce revenue can be attributed to affiliate marketing.
How much can an affiliate marketer make?
An affiliate marketer’s income varies based on their level of involvement and the product the affiliate marketer is endorsing. Low level affiliate marketers make $100 here and there, while top performers make all the way up to 7 figure incomes.
Can anyone be an Affiliate Marketer?
Anyone can be an affiliate marketer. You can start with as little as a cell phone and a Facebook account. What matters is the person and their willingness to adapt, learn, and cultivate a niche field. Basically, can you muster the courage to sell what you believe?
How can I become an Affiliate Marketer?
All you need to do is find a platform that is right for you. The biggest hurdle you will find are the requirements of the company. I suggest anyone starting out to back a product you can stand behind. Don’t go in thinking the results are going to happen overnight… you are going to have to work for it. My opinion, it’s worth it.
Should I by a starter kit?
Only if you want to throw your money away and if you want to do that, I am happy to accept it. Feel free to contact me and we can work that out. TIAT and Samuel Butler provide free seminars on how to become an affiliate marketer. He will even guide you on signing up for your accounts. We only succeed when you succeed.