What is Affiliate Marketing??

Affiliate Marketing is the process of marketing in which an online retailer pays a commission to the external partner for generating sales on its website.

This external partner known as an affiliate promotes the products and services of other people and earns a piece of the profit for each sale that is made due to his referrals.

There is a total of 4 different parties involved in Affiliate Marketing. These are:

The Merchant:

Also known as the brand, seller, retailer, or vendor. This can be a single individual or a company. This party creates the product or has the product for sale. This party is responsible for paying the commission to the external partner when the sale is made due to his referral.

The Affiliate:

This party is also known as a publisher. It can also be a single individual or a company that is in the affiliate marketing business. This party promotes the product and services of the merchant and in return gets a commission on every sale made. This party tries to convince the buyers so that they end up buying the product of the merchant. They try to market to consumers on different platforms such as blogs, social media, or search engines.

The Consumer:

This party plays the most important role in the entire affiliate Marketing program. Without consumer purchase, there will not be any commission and the merchant will not pay the external partner if the consumer only visits the website but does not make any purchase. A consumer may or may not be aware of the thing that they are a part of the affiliate program but the tracking system in the background works very effectively and the consumer ends up buying the product as usual and the affiliate gets paid for its referral. The cost of the affiliate is included in the retail price only, the consumer will not have to pay the higher price for the product.

The Network:

The network works as an intermediary between the affiliate and the merchant. Networks such as Commission Junction handles the payment and the product delivery in a more efficient manner making the whole affiliate marketing program work smoothly. Both merchants and affiliates have to register themselves to these networks in order to get the benefit of an affiliate marketing program.