Tag: your own business

Starting an Affiliate Marketing Campaign


The affiliate strategy

Some business owners opt to start an affiliate marketing campaign as part of their overall marketing strategy. These business owners are usually referred to as merchants, and in most cases the affiliate marketing campaign is only a small portion of their overall marketing strategy. But there many business owners choose to rely exclusively on this type of marketing. The main purpose of doing this is to save money while still achieving valuable advertising.

However, once a business becomes more successful they should consider being more proactive and combining affiliate marketing with other types of Internet marketing such as placing banner ads and orchestrating an email marketing campaign. This article will take a look at what affiliate marketing is and will provide insight into why this is popular and how it can be used effectively.

Affiliate marketing campaigns

An affiliate marketing campaign is essentially a situation where other website owners place ads for your business on their websites. These website owners are known as affiliates. It is important to understand how this type of marketing works. In general the affiliates are given code for your banner ad to place on their website and given the freedom to promote their own website as they see fit. In promoting their website they are also attracting attention to your website because of the banner ad directing visitors to your own website.

One of the most appealing elements of affiliate marketing centers on the fact that the affiliate is only compensated when s/he produces a desired result. This means the business owner is not obligated to pay an affiliate unless the affiliate is successful. Success may be defined as generating traffic to the website, resulting in a sale or even resulting in the Internet user registering on the business owner’s website or filling out a survey.

Affiliate compensation

The compensation for affiliates is generally based on cost per click, cost per lead or cost per sale. Cost per click and cost per lead are usually paid a flat fee which is awarded to the affiliate each time an Internet user either simply clicks through the banner ad on the affiliate’s website or performs a specific action after clicking through the ad. Cost per sale may result in the affiliate being awarded a flat fee or a percentage of the sale depending on the agreement between the business owner and the affiliate.

The most effective use of affiliate marketing is to actively seek out affiliates with a proven track record of promoting the businesses which they support. Most affiliate programs are open to anyone with a website and it is not necessarily damaging to allow those who are not particularly knowledgeable about marketing to run your banner ad but it is far more worthwhile to seek out affiliates who are quite adept and generating website traffic to their own website. This is important because the more visitors they receive each month the more likely your website it to receive interest from visitors who click on the affiliates banner ad.

The banner ad

Another aspect of affiliate marketing which can contribute to success or failure is the design of your banner ads. It is important to remember affiliate marketing is viewed the same way other types of marketing are viewed and care should be taken to create banner ads which will be appealing to your target audience. This means everything from the colors of your ad to the size and style of the font should be carefully considered to create an appealing advertisement.

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Safeguarding Your Affiliate Commissions




An ounce of prevention…

It is a known fact shared by many in the affiliate marketing business that affiliate commissions have been, and still are, subject to theft perpetrated by some unsavory individuals; and while it is not easy to catch the perpetrators of such thievery, it may be both simple and practical for affiliates to safeguard their earnings from theft with the use of a few software products that are affordable as well as effective.

These special types of software programs range in price from 15 to 50 dollars and can be used to assist you in protecting commissions derived from your affiliate marketing business – or any other business for that matter. Keep in mind however, that the effectiveness and ease of use provided by these programs vary greatly, so before you buy one, it is important that you learn as much about the particular program as you can possibly can.

You might be familiar with the kind of software referred to as it is discussed in the following paragraphs.

Banner servers

Banner servers not only serve banners, but many of the more recent servers will display text links as well. The link coding that is associated with served ads is normally extensive in length, so that a visitor to your website whose intentions may be suspect will not be able to see where the redirect is heading as it appears on the status bar.

Click-tracking software

Click counting software will not show the target URL because the links point inwards to the software, which is normally installed on your own website. Once someone has clicked on the link, the click tracking application will then redirect a visitor to the URL that you have specified within the script. The click tracking software will also provide a great way to monitor the usefulness of your ads and not just relying on the reports that merchants will provide.

Protecting your commissions is extremely important, as you want to get paid for your hard work and long hours. So although commission theft is something that occurs affiliate marketing and other Web-based businesses, you can protect yourself. There are certain techniques and tactics fraudsters use in their day-to-day activities, and if you know what to protect against, you can certainly safeguard yourself from such online fraud.

Proceed with vigilance

If you own your own business, the last thing you want is to experience either credit card fraud or affiliate fraud; and since you now know (if you didn’t before) that this type of crime does happen on a regular basis, you’ll need to make sure to take the necessary steps to protect yourself, because those who do not will suffer the loss of income as well as other valuable items, depending on the particular circumstance.