Affiliate marketing is a great way for many people to generate a healthy income. Best of all, unlike other business models, affiliate marketing doesn’t require an advertising budget which is often required to kick start demand for other businesses.
This is one reason why affiliate marketing has been described as a win-win situation for marketer and retailer. The marketers affiliated to a retail organization immediately gain access to its product channels – and with some comprehensive research at the outset it is possible to determine which products are currently turning over healthy sales figures.
In most cases, it is free or relatively inexpensive to sign up to affiliate programs. The amount of revenue that can be generated via commissions on click-throughs to purchase is down to the planning undertaken by the sole trader. If they are prepared to put a lot of effort and hard work into enticing customers towards the relevant links, then they can sit back and let the system tick over.
Market fluctuations
Affiliate marketers can have considerable impact on e-commerce in many ways. Markets will always be subject to external factors such as shifting customer demands, popular trends, and the ebb and flow of the global marketplace. All of these aspects can have major consequences for retail organizations, affecting the products they choose to promote. The marketing decisions they make can have a profound effect on profit-making abilities.
However, affiliate marketers can be seen as invaluable third party; a buffer between the retailer and the often volatile dynamics of the market. It is in the marketers’ best interests to keep their fingers on the pulse of what is actually happening on the ground. The retailer can maintain a close eye on their affiliates’ performances, gaining a sense of which products are selling well and which aren’t.
When it comes to making commercial decisions, all the retailer has to do is decide to discontinue products. For the marketer, the consequences of this are a lot more serious as they are wholly reliant on individual items and are not in a position to chop and change what they are selling.
Most of the time the marketer should have done enough preliminary research to highlight any potential middle-term issues with products. They are in the position where they can be selective about which affiliate programs they are signing-up to in the first instance. Once they become more experienced in affiliate marketing they can build their portfolios and spread the risk over various products.
Why should a retailer offer affiliate programs?
In short, offering sole traders access to your products is a surefire way of generating sales without having to pay for the marketing. You can also choose to accept as many or as few programs as you wish. These affiliate schemes are easy to implement; after all, it is a variation of a business model that has already been in use for decades.
Consider the sales staff prowling the forecourt of a car showroom. They have no say in the designs of the vehicles on display, or which models will be enhanced or discontinued. Their sole remit is to sell units. This enterprise model is described as ‘earn as you sell’ and is ideal for the car manufacturers because they aren’t directly paying the salespeople. For the latter, there is a huge incentive to shift the products because they are paid on commission.
Transferred from the real to virtual world, the sole traders who are managing websites linked to affiliate programs are responsible for ensuring a regular turnover of the web traffic they hope will transform into sales and then commission. And these commission rates are liable to be far better than the slick be-suited men and women offering the best car deals!
The marketers have very minimal overheads as they are not responsible for maintaining stock or processing product inventories. The items they shift are merely a list of names and descriptions that appear before the customer after they have followed the click-through route.
For the e-commerce business owner, their affiliates represent a front line of sales staff they don’t have to manage but will still keep their business ticking over. Even better, because the marketers are incentivized by commission, it is in their interest to grab web traffic. They’ll plug into social media platforms, blogging enthusiastically about their products and encouraging followers to try out the items, review them and continue spreading the word.
In this win-win situation, many affiliate marketers are looking into making revenue via adult cpa network opportunities. At the outset, just like researching into any other products, they can look into the possibilities of advertising through organizations such as CrakRevenue (winner of six international awards) and Adxxx (which covers over 180 countries.) These represent the type of global reach that are ideal for affiliate marketing.