Online Advertising
Affiliate
An affiliate is a
commercial entity with a relationship with a peer or a larger entity.
Broadcast networks
In a
radio network or TV network, an affiliate is a radio station or TV station that
agrees to carry the broadcasts of, but is not owned by, the network. Usually,
the stations are still responsible for the content (such as profanity) to some
extent. An affiliate is not the same as an owned and operated station, which is owned by the network such a station
carries programming for.
Electronic commerce
Affiliate marketing typically refers to this Electronic commerce version of
the traditional agent/referral fee sales channel concept. An e-commerce
affiliate is a
website which links back to an e-commerce site such as Amazon.com. When a reader
of the website clicks on a link, they are connected to the e-tailer and if they
purchase something the affiliate receives a small payment, usually a percentage
of the money the customer spends. Affiliates can also be referred as publishers.
The Hotel and Travel Industry uses affiliate marketing to a large extent.
Corporate structure
A
corporation may be referred to as an affiliate of another when it is
related to it but not strictly controlled by it, as with a
subsidiary
relationship, or when it is desired to avoid the appearance of control. This is
sometimes seen with multinational companies that need to avoid restrictive laws
(or negative public opinion) on foreign ownership.
Affiliate networks
An affiliate network is composed of a group of merchants and a group of
affiliates. Merchants join the network and affiliates join the network in order
to advertise the merchant products in exchange of a commission from the
merchant. Affiliate networks present some great advantages for the merchant and
the affiliate. The merchant gets potential access to a wide networks of
affiliates. The affiliate does not necessarily need to make a certain sale
amount for one particular merchant but rather for the entire range of merchants
before getting paid.
The affiliate also puts more trust in a network rather than a merchants
independent affiliate program. The merchants pay the overall commission to the
network. The network then distributes the money to each affiliate who made the
sale.
Use of affiliate links
Sites made up mostly of affiliate links are usually badly regarded as they do
not offer quality content. In 2005 there were active changes made by Google
whereby certain websites were labeled as "thin affiliates" and were either
removed from the index, or taken from the first 2 pages of the results and moved
deeper within the index. In order to avoid this categorization, webmasters who
are affiliate marketers must create real value within their websites that
distinguishes their work from the work of spammers or banner farms with nothing
but links leading to merchant sites.
Affiliate links work best in the context of the information contained within
the website. For instance, if a website is about "How to publish a website",
within the content an affiliate link leading to a merchant's ISP site would be
appropriate. If a website is about Sports, then an affiliate link leading to a
sporting goods site might work well within the content of the articles and
information about sports. The idea is to publish quality information within the
site, and to link "in context" to related merchant's sites.
One common use of affiliate links is shopping directories and or price
comparison websites. However, these sites should do their best to enhance the
web shopping experience. In many other cases, affiliate marketers offer unique
content in niche subject areas that they have researched well, and their text or
graphic links to a merchant's site are well placed. This principle works very
well in blog website marketing as well.
External links
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