{"id":7520,"date":"2014-06-05T18:42:05","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T18:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.123print.com\/blog\/?p=7520"},"modified":"2015-07-16T18:44:47","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T18:44:47","slug":"affiliate-marketing-what-it-is-and-how-to-get-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/affiliate-marketing-what-it-is-and-how-to-get-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Affiliate Marketing \u2013 What It Is And How To Get Started"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Affiliate
[credit: tweakyourbiz.com]<\/figcaption><\/figure>What is Affiliate Marketing?<\/span><\/p>\n

Affiliate marketing basically stemmed from the realization that companies had an opportunity to market their products and services to consumers with the millions of websites that are visited each day. At the same time, website owners were realizing that they should be compensated for the hard work they put into providing their visitors valuable content. So, affiliate marketing emerged as a solution to help form relationships between advertisers (your business), publishers (websites that promote your business) and consumers (people you hope to buy from your business).<\/p>\n

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More clearly defined, an advertiser<\/b> is a company that sells a product and\/or service and is willing to pay others to help sell and promote them. A publisher<\/b> is a company (or in some cases, an individual) that promotes an advertisers\u2019 product and\/or service in exchange for a payment (in most cases, this payment is in the form of a commission based on sales). Advertisers and publishers enter into an agreement with each other where the advertiser provides the publisher with whatever they need, such as creative banner ads, text ads, links, etc., to successfully advertise their product and\/or service. Finally, a consumer<\/b> solidifies the relationship. The consumer, presumably a visitor on the publisher\u2019s website, sees an advertiser’s ad and clicks through to (hopefully!) make a purchase.<\/p>\n

How does Affiliate Marketing work?<\/span><\/p>\n

Please meet every affiliate marketers best friend \u2014 the cookie. Unfortunately, we\u2019re not talking about Grandma\u2019s homemade chocolate chip cookies. We\u2019re talking about an internet cookie \u2014 a technology that works with web browsers to store information. When it comes to affiliate marketing, a \u201ccookie\u201d is put into a consumer\u2019s browser when they click through an ad on a publisher\u2019s site onto an advertiser\u2019s site. SO what is this cookie storing? It is storing info such as who the advertiser is, who the publisher is, the specific ad the consumer clicked through, commission amount determined in the advertiser\/publisher agreement, etc.<\/p>\n

How do I get started?<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve determined affiliate marketing is the right choice for your business, what are you waiting for? If you\u2019re getting ready to do some serious affiliate marketing, it may be best to consider joining a network like Commission Junction<\/a> or LinkShare<\/a>. Some factors you\u2019ll want to think about when setting up your program are:<\/p>\n