What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is big business today, responsible for over a billion pounds of sales during 2005. In turn this has meant millions of pounds worth of commissions for affiliates. So what exactly is affiliate marketing and more importantly, how can you make money from it in 2006?

Affiliate marketing is where a company - usually called a merchant - pays commissions to people (be they individuals or other companies) - known as affiliates - for sending customers to their website.

Amazon are generally credited with having the first ever affiliate scheme, whereby they pay "associates" for sending customers to the Amazon website. And because it was wildly successful, a whole industry was born with companies big and small now having affiliate schemes.

Companies like Sky TV, John Lewis, Tesco, B&Q and eBay, as well as countless smaller speciality retailers, all have affiliate schemes that will pay you a commission on any buying customers you bring to their websites. And many operate their affiliate schemes through leading affiliate networks such as Clix Galore, Affiliate Future and Affiliate Window where you can sign up with any number of affiliates and have the network collect your commissions for you.

If you have a website, or are planning to launch one, you can be earning affiliate commissions literally in minutes.

Simply join one or more of the affiliate networks and within minutes you will have dozens of merchants to choose from. Once you have a relationship established with a merchant, you use the text and banner ads supplied to send customers to your merchant's website.

Every ad will contain a tracking code, identifying you to the merchant. And if the visitor you send to a website converts to a customer then you will earn a commission on that sale.

Most merchants pay a percentage of the total sale figures, usually in the region of 3% to 10%, but others pay a flat fee on sales while some pay simply for a lead (insurance and mortgage companies often do this for example).

And how much money can you make? Well that depends on how successful you are at affiliate marketing. But to give you an idea of the potential money to be made as an affiliate, several ebay.co.uk affiliates earn over £100,000 a month - that's over a million pounds a year! And chances are those affiliates are promoting more than just eBay!

So why not sign up with one of the affiliate networks now and start making money via affiliate marketing.

Clix Galore
Affiliate Future
Affiliate Window