Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based
marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor
or customer they bring to advertiser’s, usually through the affiliate's own
marketing efforts. The affiliate
marketing industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as
'retailer' or 'brand' or advertiser), the network (that is the entity that
contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the
payments), the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate'), and the customer. The
market has grown in complexity, resulting in the emergence of a secondary tier
of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and
specialized third party vendors.
Affiliate
marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree,
because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include
organic search engine optimization (SEO),
paid search engine marketing (PPC - Pay Per Click), e-mail marketing, content
marketing and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates
sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products
or services offered by a partner.
Affiliate
marketing is commonly confused with referral marketing, as both forms of
marketing use third parties to drive sales to the retailer. However, both are
distinct forms of marketing and the main difference between them is that
affiliate marketing relies purely on financial motivations to drive sales while
referral marketing relies on trust and personal relationships to drive sales.
Affiliate
marketing is frequently overlooked by advertisers. While search engines,
e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online
retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates
continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.
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