Affiliate Marketing Programs and the Different Publishing Strategies

Online merchants or retailers hosting a number of products bearing different brands take advantage of affiliate marketing programs to provide more exposure for the retailed items. In this type of Internet marketing, the affiliate refers to the third-party publisher who avails of the affiliate program offered by the merchant. Basing upon the amount of traffic the affiliate publisher is able to drive to the merchant site the compensation is estimated and paid through online payments systems such as PayPal. These make for fantastic money making opportunities.

Aside from the compensation earned through driving traffic, affiliates are also rewarded every time a successful purchase is made by the customer who is driven to the site via the affiliate publisher. From this perspective, publishers have to feature particular products and entice customers to click through the link. To become a leading site about the product, publishers employ strategies such as search engine optimization to improve exposure.

Other affiliate marketing programs cater to coupon and rebate websites that feature sales promotions related to a particular product. In this type of affiliate program, the publisher offers coupons and rebates when customers connect to the merchant site via the affiliate advertisement. Since customers earn discounts through coupons and paybacks through rebates, they are more likely to purchase the product making this traditionally inspired marketing strategy effective. Affiliates, on the other hand, earn a portion of the income every time a coupon is used.

The affiliate marketing programs provide a huge earning potential so that review sites dedicated to promoting affiliate products have been established. These review sites then hire a pool of writers who would write product review articles where links directing to the merchant site are inserted. These review aggregator sites are more effective than individually managed sites since the volume of articles published translate to better site rankings. By maintaining quality review articles, the affiliate review site becomes an authority to particular products increasing customer trust hence better product turnovers.

Affiliate marketing programs benefit the core players of the model involving the merchant, the network, the publisher, and the customer. As long as legitimate reviews are ensured and reasonable compensation for the publisher is provided, this Internet marketing strategy enables a healthy cycle of buying and selling products online.