What is Affiliate Marketing?
If you’re just joining us, you might be wondering how it is that so many people manage to make a solid living online without actually owning “real companies”. In this case, the answer is affiliate marketing. But what is affiliate marketing? Simple – I’ll explain.
Over the last ten years, thousands of companies have brought their businesses online, and thousands of new companies have started out online without even existing in an offline sense. Although these companies have ways to promote themselves online, they appreciate getting help from marketing specialists who know how to drive additional traffic and sales. In exchange for their help, those specialists get paid by the companies they promote. The vast majority of the time, companies pay out in the form of commission rather than salary. That’s so they can reward only those who deliver results.
If that sounds like a “sales rep” (to use a term from the offline world), that’s because an affiliate marketer is basically just a commission-only sales rep on the internet. The main difference, though, is that affiliate marketers generally work for many companies, and the relationship is usually more flexible.