How can retailers use Affiliate Marketing to increase online sales.

If you are considering affiliate marketing to increase your online sales, but don’t know much about it, perhaps this short introduction will help you to make your decision.  Affiliate marketing can serve to help you as a merchant by working together with internet publishers or “affiliates” to promote and sell your products. Many retailers have realized some wonderful profits with the use of affiliates.

Affiliate marketing takes place when a merchant becomes affiliated with one or more online publishers who promote the merchants business on their own websites for some type of payment. Affiliates typically work from commissions based on their role in the merchant’s sales.  This takes place in a few different ways. Affiliates may get paid a commission when a viewer clicks a link on their blog or site and is taken to the merchant’s site in order to do business. The commissions can be based on a sale that is made through the affiliate’s link or might be based on a fixed amount for each visit, whether a sale is made or not.  Affiliates might use ordinary methods of advertising through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or Pay-per-Click options, or any other type of advertising method that is common to their site or blog. Since it is in their best interest to promote your product or service, a mutually satisfying relationship can be formed between you as the merchant and your affiliates. The bottom line is that with the use of affiliate marketing, you can watch your sales increase without spending out money on extra advertising, and you will only be paying commissions on actual sales.

There are a couple of ways of finding affiliates to work with. You can either find your own affiliates and get them set up with the terms you prefer for helping to market your service or product, or you can use the services of an affiliate network or affiliate manager.  Affiliate networks and affiliate managers have access to many publishers, as well as ratings on their past performance. They can assist you in choosing the affiliates that are best suited to your type of business and the manner in which you want to compensate them. If you decide to look into some affiliates on your own, there are some things you should consider. You should try to find affiliates whose blogs or websites are in some way relevant to your business.  You should also focus on those with high web traffic and which are good at promoting products.

The use of affiliate marketing may be the single most important step you take in promoting your business, so choose your affiliates wisely.