How Affiliate Marketing Works.

Affiliate marketing is a simple but effective way of exposing your products to a wide range of viewers. With this internet marketing practice a business pays affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's efforts. Basically it is a type of crowdsourcing. This form of marketing utilizes a very simple process:

1. First, the affiliate agrees to feature the merchants products on thier website.
2. A potential new customer views the affiliate's website.
3. Next, there is an action such as clicking the ad, the result of which the viewer is sent to the merchant's website, via your personal affiliant link.
4. If the customer goes on to make a purchase, it will be tracked back to you since they entered the merchant's site using your affiliate link.
5. Upon a successful transaction, the affiliate will be credited for the sale and given a commision.

Affiliate marketing has basically three main components:

1. The Merchant
2. The Publisher
3. The Consumer

The merchant is the seller. The merchant is the one that wants to advertise their products to as many potential buyers as possible. Next we have the publisher. This is the affiliate, the one that writes great sales copy to get thier viewers to click onto the merchant's site. Then we have the consumer. This of course is the person that completes the transaction and makes money for everyone.

So how do you know if your blog or website will be an excellent candidate for affiliate marketing?

You have to take a few things into consideration.

1. Having high traffic is a key component to your website or blog.
2. Next you have to find relevant products or services that relate to your website or blog.
3. You also want these products and services to be of good quality. (If you reccommend low quality products to your readers then they may begin to distrust your message.)
4. Your readers have to also be in a buying mood. You can have the best product or service for sale but if some one isn't in the mood to make a purchase then it just won't matter.
5. This is where the ability to write good sales copy comes into play. If you can write outstanding copy, then you may be able to influence the buyers mood and swing them to make a purchase.

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