Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs allow you to refer people from your website or blog to a product, service, or other item and get paid when someone buys that item or service. The range of companies and products that pay for referrals includes software, books, fashion and home loans. Over 18,000 companies pay commissions based on a referral from your website.

Affiliate links are often used in the text of an article or as a photo of a product on a website. Since the commission is paid by the site on which you make a purchase, there's no additional cost to buying any product or service through an affiliate link.

Affiliate advertisers and partners

There are two sides to affiliate programs, the advertiser, and the partner. The advertiser is the company or organization that pays the commission for a customer referral. Affiliate programs are designed to pay when there is a purchase, so advertisers like them since there's only a cost when a sale is made. The advertiser bears the cost of the affiliate program as one of their advertising expenses.

Affiliate partners are people and organizations that publish content on the internet, and there's no fee to apply and become an affiliate partner as a publisher. The affiliate partner joins the affiliate program of an advertiser and obtains access to resources where website code is available for listing products and services from the advertiser on their publication. This code is in the form of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that is used to create links from one page on the internet to another. A publisher can copy and paste it into their site or email to use the link, so the process is not very complicated.

This code is relevant because it includes a tracking number that lets the advertiser know the source of the referral. When the person who clicks on the partner's site link opens the new webpage, the advertiser knows the origin of the referral and can pay any commission to the appropriate partner.

If you're an advertiser and are interested in signing up affiliates, there are affiliate marketing applications listed on the Shopify App Store. You can research them here even if ou don't use the Shopify site for your website. Affiliate software applications will help you quickly setup your program so you can start offering commissions for referrals. While you might be able to find an affiliate application that's free, in my research I found that most have a monthly fee starting at about $20. Shopify also has an excellent blog article with a list of affiliate applications.

Publishers can make money with affiliate programs

If you have a website, blog, or email newsletter, an affiliate program gives you a way to earn money when you refer someone who makes a purchase. By making money on referral commissions, there's no physical stocking of products, processing of payments, no shipping, and no customer returns. Many people and organizations find that creating a quality publication on the internet and generating affiliate commissions is sometimes easier than making and shipping a real product.

Affiliate programs also let a publisher pick and choose who to promote and list on their website. Unlike web ads, a publisher has to join and become an affiliate partner of a particular company or organization, then use the advertiser' provided affiliate code to create the referral link.

An affiliate program is a useful form of advertising when a publication wants to pick ads for specific companies or organizations. An example would be food blogger that wants to refer readers to places where they can purchase cookware mentioned in an article. If the blogger becomes an affiliate partner for the cookware company, the blogger makes money whenever a referral makes a purchase. To the reader, the link to the page where they can buy the cookware looks the same, and the page looks the same, but the blogger makes a commission from the advertiser because they used a link with an affiliate number.

There's typically a minimum payout amount, about $50 or $100, so when your commissions reach that amount they make a direct deposit into your bank account.

Applying to be an affiliate

To become an affiliate partner, you need to apply to become a partner of an affiliate program. You'll need a tax ID (your SSN or employer ID), a checking account, and a link to your website for review. Almost all affiliate programs are free since your paid through commissions. Once you apply, your application will be evaluated and approved or rejected. Some advertisers have certain requirements for partner sites and may not approve you if you don't meet their needs. While not too common, if one advertiser doesn't approve you there is usually another with a similar product or service available.

There are two types of affiliate programs, direct or through an affiliate service. A direct program is one run by the advertiser, while some advertisers prefer an affiliate service. An example of a direct program is the one from Amazon. Amazon's program is free to join and pays commissions when you use your affiliate links to refer people. After joining you gain access to a partner area where you can copy HTML code that includes your unique partner number. When any of your referrals makes a purchase, Amazon credits your account.

An affiliate service is a company that manages the affiliate programs for many advertisers. With so many advertisers of all sizes, many decide that a service is easier to use for this type of advertising. Becoming a partner through a service is a little different since you'll need to setup a free account with the service first, then apply to the advertiser program or programs you want to join. One advantage for a publisher is the range of advertiser choices offered by a service.

Where to find them

If you are looking to earn commissions by referring people to any company or brand, scroll down to the bottom of the company's web page and look for an affiliate link in the fine print. Another good way is to do a web search for the business and add the word affiliate to your search.

To help you, here are some links to popular affiliate programs:

To my way of thinking

If you're a "go-to" person for information or assistance on any topic, using affiliate programs can help generate income. The greater your web traffic, the higher your affiliate program referrals. Be careful not to oversell, however, because your priority should be to provide quality content for your audience.

I recommend starting with Amazon's affiliate program because if you've ever bought anything on the web, you've probably bought something from Amazon. It's easy to sign up for use.

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