What is Affiliate Marketing

Author: Debopam Banerjee

Many of you new beginners donot kno anything about affiliate marketing. So let me first discuss about few basic points on affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is essentially 'pay for performance' marketing. Let me explain this step by step regarding getting started with affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing simply consists of a merchant who wants to sell his products to people online. Then there is the customer who desires to buy these products or services online. The other entity involved is the affiliate, who either passes on leads to the merchant or sells these products for the merchant to the customer, by directing him or her to the merchant's website, for a commission. You supposed to fall in this category & may be a customer also. One report says that in 2006, affiliate marketing in the UK itself resulted in total sales of 2.16 billion pounds (Wikipedia). So, affiliate marketing is growing by leaps and bounds and there is every reason for you to join this business. But before proceeding you should keep in mind few necessary things.

Research Well

How do you get started with affiliate marketing? And why should you be in this business in the first place? This is because it is a low risk business with not much investment required from your side. However it does not mean that you do not have to put in hard work. Many affiliates drop the idea of continuing this business in the first few months itself. So if you know someone who has a success story, learn from the person and also do a lot of research on the net.

Some Valuable Tips on Getting Started

Here is some pertinent advice. Suppose you feel that you have a good idea. It may be related to something that you are interested in, that you have some know-how about and that adds worth to the information available on the internet. Then just transform this idea into a website. For example- let's say that you are interested in modern dance; you can have a website that has informative articles on Modern Dance, how to perform it, its types, the great performers, the history of Modern Dance and so on. The articles must be interesting and enlighten the reader and grab his attention. Now you need to get your site hosted and have a domain name for your website. This means having a space on the internet for your website, which you will have to rent. Rent is charged usually on a yearly basis and works out to be quite cheap. Then you have to have a domain name example moderndance.co.net. Keep the name of your website simple and short, instead of a lengthy and complicated name that people will find hard to remember. Now go on to the net and type in modern dance + affiliates. And you will see other people who are also interested in Modern Dance, other Modern Dance related products and affiliate programs that you can associate yourself with and become an affiliate for. Now you are on your way to getting started in affiliate marketing.

Just for your information- the current hot markets for affiliate marketing are travel, internet gaming, mobile phones, adult and retail sectors (Wikipedia).

I hope this information will be useful to all my readers & I wish you good luck in getting started with affiliate marketing.

For more information please visit my site http://debsaffiliatenews.blogspot.com

About the Author:

I am Debopam Banerjee. I am persuing PhD degree on Microbial Technology. I also do affiliate marketing business.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - What is Affiliate Marketing