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Understanding Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an online version of the age-old practice of paying referral fees.
It works like this: A web site starts an affiliate program, which allows other web sites to sign up as commissioned sales agents. The affiliate sites post banner ads or other promotional materials, which interested customers click on to visit the merchants site and make their purchases. Software tracks the source of each customer, and an agreed upon commission is paid for each bona-fide sale.
The benefits are easy to see. When you start an affiliate program you can get hundreds or thousands of other web site operators to promote your products. Affiliates select programs that offer goods or services that are of interest to their existing site visitors. So affiliates earn extra money and your get new customers and increased revenues.
Affilate Marketing Program Management
The Pre-Commerce Group manages affiliate programs on the LinkShare network. LinkShare is the leading affiliate network, working with over 1000 merchants and over a million affiliate web site operators.
We can handle every aspect of your affiliate marketing effort, including:
- Program Setup - The first step is to select and sign up with an affiliate network such as Linkshare. We'll help you with the contracts, administrative setup, and initial program configuration.
- Affiliate Recruiting - Once your program is underway, the key is attracting the largest possible number of well targeted affiliates. We'll help define your materials, get the word out, and seek out the top performing potential partners.
- Merchandising and Promotions - Your affiliates can only sell based on the quality and quantity of merchandising and promotional material you give them, in the form of banner ads, marketing copy, and support materials. We'll help tune your offerings for the maximum effect.
- Channel Communications - Like any sales channel, affiliates work best when well informed. We'll develop newsletters and other tools to keep your affiliates informed and motivated.
- Reporting - As the clicks and the sales come in, we'll use the available reports and analytics to tune and improve your program. We'll make sure all billings and payments are properly accounted for, and help provide a clear current view and forecast of sales through this channel.
Next Steps
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