People are often confused by affiliate programmes. This article aims to remove that confusion and make the whole area of affiliate marketing clear and simple.
In simple terms, affiliate programmes are a way to get other people to promote your products and services in return for a commission payment.
The confusion starts when people are unclear about whether they are the vendor or the affiliate…
Vendor (Advertiser)
The vendor is the person who has something to sell on their website. This can be a physical product like a book or a pair of shoes, a non-physical product like an eBook or a a music download, or perhaps a service like a holiday booking, or website design. The important factor is that whatever you’re selling must be for sale via a shopping cart on a website or blog. This is because the affiliate programme software automatically records information which includes details of the transaction, value of the order, which affiliate to pay and how much to pay them. For this reason (in most cases) affiliate programmes are not suitable for orders that are taken manually.
Affiliate (Publisher)
The affiliate is someone who has a web presence which gets traffic. The affiliate places a banner advertisement or text link on their website, blog, Facebook page etc. which when clicked takes the visitor to the vendor’s website. Then, when the visitor buys from the vendor, the vendor pays the affiliate a commission for the sale.
Popular
Affiliate programmes are popular because it usually costs nothing to become an affiliate and often costs very little to become a vendor. The vendor installs some software on their website which runs the whole process for them and the affiliate signs up online, logs in, and then cuts and pastes the links and banners into their web pages, blog etc. Both can then log in to the system at any time to check on progress, statistical information, earnings etc. At the end of each payment period (usually monthly) the vendor then pays the affiliates any commissions due.
Affiliate programmes work because they provide the vendor with sales leads and the affiliate with income – and both for very little work because most of the work is done automatically by the software.
How to run your own Affiliate Programme (Be a Vendor)
To run your own affiliate programme you need:
- A product or service to sell
- A website or blog
- A PayPal for Business account (not a personal one)
- A shopping cart
- Affiliate software
If you want to set up your own website or blog, one of the simplest ways is to use WordPress.org which is free. You will need a domain name and a hosting account which are both available from Birch Hosting for just a few pounds a year. You install WordPress from your hosting control panel and then log in and start writing your site. Note: WordPress also offer hosted blogs at WordPress.com, but these do not allow you to use affiliate programmes on them.
Once you have a PayPal for Business account and WordPress site, you install a shopping cart plug-in . The best one I have found is called WordPress eStore because it is very easy to set up and use and unlike most others, it allows you to sell large downloadable files such as audio and video files.
The best affiliate software plug-in I have found for WordPress is called WP Affiliate Platform and again, it is very easy to set up and use.
How to Become an Affiliate
To become an affiliate, first you look for vendors’ affiliate programmes who have something to sell that is related to the content of your website or blog. Once you find them you sign up as an affiliate, log in and cut and paste the links into your site. There are literally hundreds of thousands of affiliate programmes to choose from so whatever your site is about, there will be something to suit it. Note: most affiliate programmes are accessible from links at the top or bottom of websites and most large companies have them.
Here are a few popular affiliate programmes:
Affiliate Programme Brokers/Directories
Because there are so many affiliate programmes to choose from, it is often a good idea to start with affiliate programme brokers or affiliate directories. Both list hundreds of affiliate programmes and usually do so in categories so it is easy to find those that suit your business. One big benefit of using a broker is that as an affiliate you only have to log in to one site to get access to hundreds of good affiliate programmes.
Here are a few popular affiliate brokers to get you started:
For affiliate directories, just type “affiliate directory” into your search engine.
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