Finding merchants that will let make you money for both of you!
OK, we're back! If you've been with us for the first five lessons of our affiliate marketing course, you've come a long way in about a week (if not, I suggest you read the first 5 lessons before this one, they're linked from the archives section at the right of this article). Today's lesson will teach you how to find good merchants.
There are at least 3 and maybe 4 parties involved in affiliate marketing.
As in any transaction, there is the customer. Without the customer nothing happens, so you have to take good care of him or her. You want to make sure that you provide good information and don't overstate the benefits of the product you're recommending.
Then there is the company with the product. They have a "widget" that the customer needs. Once the customer finds the company, a mutually beneficial transaction can take place. If the merchant has the time and skills to market effectively, they can sell directly to the consumer. But often they don't have those skills. That's where you come in.....
The affiliate (you or me) help the customer find the merchant. We do that by building a web site that is optimized to bring in search engine traffic, or perhaps we use a pay-per-click search engine like Google AdWords to buy traffic to our site. Sometimes we do a bit of "pre-selling" wherein we review alternative merchants so that the customer can make a more educated decision on which merchant is better for their needs. So we might be affiliates for several different merchants on the same site.
At the very least those are the 3 parties involved in an affiliate marketing transaction. But who makes sure the affiliate gets paid? Sometimes the merchant does that directly, but more often than not, they let an outside firm, like Commission Junction, Clickbank, or Linkshare do the accounting for them. That would be the 4th party in the transaction.
With that being said, let's go over to Lesson 5, which is about "Finding Merchants". I hope it helps you start to pull things together.
There are at least 3 and maybe 4 parties involved in affiliate marketing.
As in any transaction, there is the customer. Without the customer nothing happens, so you have to take good care of him or her. You want to make sure that you provide good information and don't overstate the benefits of the product you're recommending.
Then there is the company with the product. They have a "widget" that the customer needs. Once the customer finds the company, a mutually beneficial transaction can take place. If the merchant has the time and skills to market effectively, they can sell directly to the consumer. But often they don't have those skills. That's where you come in.....
The affiliate (you or me) help the customer find the merchant. We do that by building a web site that is optimized to bring in search engine traffic, or perhaps we use a pay-per-click search engine like Google AdWords to buy traffic to our site. Sometimes we do a bit of "pre-selling" wherein we review alternative merchants so that the customer can make a more educated decision on which merchant is better for their needs. So we might be affiliates for several different merchants on the same site.
At the very least those are the 3 parties involved in an affiliate marketing transaction. But who makes sure the affiliate gets paid? Sometimes the merchant does that directly, but more often than not, they let an outside firm, like Commission Junction, Clickbank, or Linkshare do the accounting for them. That would be the 4th party in the transaction.
With that being said, let's go over to Lesson 5, which is about "Finding Merchants". I hope it helps you start to pull things together.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home