Affiliate Marketing Programs

In the world of search engine marketing, an excellent medium for driving qualified traffic to your website, or making money by doing the driving, is something called affiliate marketing.

Using an affiliate marketing program, a retail website (advertiser) that sells products or services connects with "affiliates" who advertise and promote the advertiser's products. These affiliates will drive traffic to the advertiser's website by utilizing ads, text links or product links on their own websites or blogs, etc. If the customer ends up buying something on the advertiser's website as a result of the link, the affiliate earns a commission. Another action might be if an affiliate drives a customer lead to an advertier's site, this may also result in a commission or fee paid to the affiliate.

This example of paying an affiliate based on a converting buyer or lead generation is called cost per acquisition (CPA).

The right revenue sharing program(s) can increase your website sales volume by 10, 20 percent or more. These programs are a common element of many large e-tailer online marketing campaigns today.

Along with link campaigns, pay per click advertising and search engine optimization, affiliate marketing will help round out your online marketing program.

Some resources for affiliate marketing are listed below:

• Affiliate Marketing - Wikipedia
• Commission Junction - A leading affiliate marketing company
• LinkShare - A leading affiliate marketing company