If you’re already into Internet marketing for your home business, you should also consider adding affiliate marketing to your Internet marketing campaign. Affiliate marketing can take your home business to another level when used correctly. Because of the nature of affiliate marketing you have nothing to lose by taking the plunge. It will not be financially detrimental to your home business because you only pay your affiliates when they yield positive results from their advertising campaigns.
First of all how is affiliate marketing defined? According to marketingterms.com affiliate marketing is essentially: “revenue sharing between online advertisers/merchants and online publishers/salespeople, whereby compensation is based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales, clicks, registrations, or a hybrid model.” Simply put, affiliate marketing involves having other business owners, known as affiliates, post advertisements for your home business website on their websites. Affiliate advertisements encourage visitors to click on the advertising link and visit your website. You are able to track these ads to determine how many potential customers came from a specific link and if your remuneration is based on the pay per click (PPC) model this will allow you to determine your affiliate’s payout. PPC rewards an affiliate each time a visitor clicks on one of your ads.
There are three other systems of payment besides PPC. The others are pay per impression, pay per lead and pay per sale. Pay per impression means the affiliate earns a profit each time the affiliate advertisement is viewed by a unique visitor. For each new visitor who views the advertisement the affiliate is given a predetermined amount of money. This amount is usually negotiated between the business owner and affiliate prior to the beginning of the affiliate’s advertising campaign. Pay per lead programs reward the affiliate when a visitor not only clicks on the advertisement but also performs a predetermined action such as filling out a survey or providing their contact information.
Pay per sale programs reward the affiliate each time a visitor clicks through the advertisement on the affiliate’s website and also makes a purchase. Commission rates paid to affiliate’s by the better programs range anywhere from 50% to 75% and in some cases even 100%. The reason business owners pay such high rates is because they usually make most of their profits after the initial sale by up selling their new clients. The high commissions also help business owners attract and hang onto good sales people.
If you decide to initiate an affiliate marketing campaign you must be sure to attract good affiliates in order for it to be successful. By “good affiliates” I mean experienced people who have a proven track record for producing positive results and who are going to stay with the program and work hard with their advertising campaign. You don’t need tire kickers or people who are new to this type of business and are only trying it out before moving on to something else. You should also check out the person’s website before accepting them as an affiliate. You don’t want your ads appearing on porn sites.
Similar but non competing businesses also make good affiliates. If you find a home business that is similar to your own but isn’t a direct competitor then they may have the same targeted traffic as your website and their visitors may also be interested in what you have to offer. For example if you’re into Internet marketing products and you find a home business ideas website then you may be able to attract some of their customers in order to show them how to market their new home business online.
The risk versus reward ratio makes the decision as to whether or not to implement an affiliate marketing campaign for your home business a no brainer. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain especially if you can attract the right affiliates. Once you have conquered that, then conquering the online home business community should be a whole lot easier.