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What is an affiliate program?
Affiliate Program (also an Associate, Partner, Referral,
or Revenue Sharing Program): a merchant pays a commission
to an affiliate for generating sales from a graphic or text
link located on the affiliate's site.
Affiliate: a Web site owner that earns a commission
for referring sales to a merchant, usually another website.
Affiliate Link: a piece of code residing in a graphic
image or piece of text placed on an affiliate's web page that
notifies the merchant that an affiliate should be credited
for the customer or visitor sent to their web site.
Auto-Approve: affiliate application approval process
where all applicants are automatically approved for an affiliate
program.
Commission: income an affiliate receives for generating
a sale, lead or click-through to a merchant's web site. Sometimes
called a referral fee, a finder's fee or a bounty.
Cookies: small files stored on the visitor's computer,
which record information that is of interest to the merchant
site. With affiliate programs, cookies have two primary functions:
to keep track of what a customer purchases, and to track which
affiliate was responsible for generating the sale (and is
due a commission).
HTML code: the lines of code that affiliates use to
put links on their Web sites. Affiliate solution providers
often provide a tool where affiliates can simply copy the
code for an affiliate link and paste it into their own HTML
pages.
Pay-Per-Sale: program where an affiliate receives
a commission for each sale of a product or service that they
refer to a merchant's web site.
Residual Earnings: programs that pay affiliates not
just for the first sale a shopper from their sites makes,
but all additional sales made at the merchant's site over
the life of the customer.
Tracking Method: the way that a program tracks referred
sales, leads or clicks. The most common are by using a unique
web address (URL) for each affiliate, or by embedding an affiliate
ID number into the link that is processed by the merchant's
software. Some programs also use cookies for tracking.
Two-tier: affiliate marketing model that allows affiliates
to sign up additional affiliates below themselves, so that
when the second tier affiliates earn a commission, the affiliate
above them also receives a commission. Two-tier affiliate
marketing is also known as MLM (Multilevel Marketing).
What are some of the benefits of having your own affiliate
program?
Increase in website traffic.
Increased sales.
An effective means of advertising your products/services.
A cost-effective advertising and marketing campaign.
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