What is Affiliate Marketing and How Does it Work?

We have all thought about ways that we could make a little extra cash on the side, right? Even more so, we’ve all thought about ways that we could generate a passive income. We want an income that works for us so we can take time to focus on other tasks. One of the most popular and effective ways to generate this passive income is through Affiliate Marketing. At K2 Analytics, we believe in creating multi-channel marketing campaigns that generate the greatest possible ROI for your business, and we don’t overlook the potential that affiliate marketing can have for brands and affiliates alike. So what is affiliate marketing and how does it work?

What is affiliate marketing?

This can be best described as an arrangement where an online retailer pays a commission to an external website for generating sales. This agreement is a referral program that allows individuals to make \ income on the side. This is incredibly appealing to bloggers and online “influencers” who are looking to make money by creating great content.

It’s different than influencing

Affiliate marketing is really easy to confuse with influencer marketing (they’re some overlaps so you wouldn’t be entirely wrong either). This is because it is common for social media influencers to have their own affiliate link for a brand or company that they love working with!

Essentially, affiliate marketing is a form of marketing that benefits both the brand (known as the merchant) and the affiliate (the publisher or partner).

Top Marketing Companies offers a wide range of affiliate Top Digital Advertising Agencies to help.

So how does affiliate marketing work?

There are a few different ways to become an affiliate of a brand, but the most common way is to reach out to the brand via its affiliate program. Most merchants will have a program in place through their marketing team.

Merchants provide affiliates with an affiliate link that an affiliate can use to drive traffic toward the e-commerce website. This can be done through a direct link or through an ad or link that is embedded into your website or blog posts. Unlike social media influencing, which can be tricky to measure, affiliate marketing allows companies to measure exactly how much traffic is directed through the affiliate’s website.

Affiliate Marketing Works!

An e-commerce website will partner with an affiliate who has a substantial online presence in order to generate traffic and sales. The affiliate will create content that features the partnered brand or company Readers will click the link and purchase products from the e-commerce site. The e-commerce site pays the affiliate commission for each confirmed sale

When done correctly, affiliate marketing is a great way to make money as a publishing website as you generate compelling and persuasive content that drives traffic to a certain brand. From the brand’s perspective, it is also beneficial because you are only paying for guaranteed results. The brand does not pay anything just for the ad to be shown, but rather only when a purchase is made through the referral of the affiliate’s link.