Industry-related statistics show that affiliate marketing has an important place in business strategies. As a method of online advertising, affiliate marketing has the power to influence people and drive sales, which directly reflects company revenue. Within this course, you will learn what affiliate marketing is and about the roles you can take to become a part of affiliate marketing.
Merchants or advertisers are those who have a product to sell. They are interested in increasing their profit by working with affiliates and allowing them to promote the product on their behalf. Merchants do so by using an affiliate program where they provide everything needed for the promotion of the product(s) including the affiliate links. The course represents a guide for merchants to create an affiliate program and a strategy to encourage affiliates to join.
On the other hand, we have affiliates, who are looking for ways to monetize their online presence. Affiliates (also known as publishers) are often bloggers and influencers who enjoy online reputation and a considerable following. This enables them to affect the buying decisions of their followers. When they recommend a product, they encourage their followers to buy the same products. This activity is known as a conversion, and it is what enables affiliates to earn from this kind of strategy.
Since affiliate marketing is performance-based marketing, it focuses on processing payments only once the conversion is achieved. There are no upfront investments or payments released regardless of the results. Only after the sale referred by the affiliate is complete, will the affiliate be eligible for the commission.
Both merchants and affiliates need a plan on how to implement affiliate marketing in their online presence, how to develop a strategy to increase performance, as well as to explore benefits they can achieve with this kind of promotion. Each of these concepts is covered in this course. Management of an affiliate program is a section dedicated to merchants with tips on how to monitor the program and successfully communicate with the affiliates. Suggestions on popular affiliate programs to join is a section for affiliates where they can find interesting affiliate programs, alongside some of the most important features for each of them.
Affiliate programs are managed via affiliate networks or using affiliate software, which is why it is important to understand the features and benefits of both. In addition, other affiliate marketing tools can be quite handy when designing and managing an affiliate program, and you will find lots of recommendations in one of the sections.
The final section of the course summarizes everything, explores the issues that might occur and ways to deal with them. Since affiliate marketing is essentially a part of online marketing, it will be helpful to learn how affiliate marketing integrates with search engine marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, etc. These strategies are analyzed from both perspectives, those of merchants and affiliates. Furthermore, the topic of online marketing and its segments is worth exploring more in the future as it can improve your success with affiliate marketing, regardless if you are a merchant or an affiliate.
