Affiliate Marketing For Merchant Advertisers
There's a good chance that affiliate marketing can fit into your overall marketing plan.
Affiliate marketing is different than other online advertising in that it is not a Pay-Per-Click (PPC), it is focused on a Cost Per Acquisition (or Action) (CPA). This means that you only pay a commission to the affiliate that has brought your the sale when a sale has been made.
It's like having lots and lots of commission based salesmen running around the internet for you.
Although it is possible to run and control your affiliate program on your own, this article will focus on going through an affiliate merchant to handle all your transactions. This is how most businesses run their affiliate programs.
Before we get started, here is some basic terminology:
- Advertiser - is the merchant or retailer that sis selling a product or service online. Advertisers partner with publishers to help promote their products and services. Publishers place advertisers' ads, text links, or product links on their Web sites in exchange for commissions on leads or sales.
- Publisher - also known as an affiliate is an independent party that promotes products and services of an advertiser in exchange for a commission on leads or sales. A publisher displays an advertiser's ads, text links, or product links on their Web site, in e-mail campaigns, or in search listings. The publisher is paid a commission by the respective advertiser when a visitor takes a specific action such as buying a product.
Choosing an Affiliate Company
Choosing which affiliate marketing company can be confusing however as there are many companies that offer this service. Not all companies offer the same amount of merchant or advertiser support as well.
From the point of the advertiser, you will want to choose an affiliate marketing company that has as many publishers as possible. Some affiliate marketing companies cater to niche markets, and others are broad in their scope of advertisers and publishers.
Depending on your product, you will need to do some research on about what the affiliate company can offer you.
Affiliate Criteria
Affiliate merchants will have different criteria for being accepted as a merchant. Some examples of these criteria will be based on how large your company is, how much in sales will be transacted through online activity, etc.
You will not meet all the criteria of every company, but at the same time, you do not want to sign up with every affiliate company that you are eligible for as will be fees associated with your account.
Choosing the best company that suits your company and offers you the most publishers is the most important aspect.
Creatives
Lastly, your company will be responsible for generating the 'creatives' that the publishers will be putting on their sites. A creative is another word for advertisement.
Basically, you will need to create a number of text links, product links, and banner ads of various sizes so that publishers can display your ads on their website.
To close out this article on affiliate marketing for merchant advertisers, here is a list of some of the larger affiliate marketing companies and their criteria for admittance.