What Is Affiliate Marketing? How It Works

Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest models on the web, and it is still one of the most overlooked. The idea is simple: you only pay when it works. Here is how it works, and when it is worth using.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a partnership where a partner, called an affiliate, recommends your products and earns a commission on the sales they create. The partner shares a tracked link, and when someone clicks and buys, the sale is registered and the partner gets their share.

The clever part is that you only pay for results. No sale, no cost. That makes affiliate one of the lowest-risk channels there is.

Who are affiliates?

Affiliates come in many forms:

• Content sites and blogs that review or compare products.
• Influencers who recommend to their followers.
• Cashback and discount sites that share the commission with the customer.
• Niche sites that are experts in a narrow field.

The best affiliates work as an extension of your own content marketing. They build trust with an audience you would otherwise never reach.

When does affiliate make sense?

Affiliate fits best with online stores that have a broad range and healthy margins, because there has to be room for the commission. It also requires that you can track sales correctly, so that both you and the partner trust the numbers.

It is rarely the first channel I recommend, but as part of a full online marketing strategy it can be a steady source of sales you would not otherwise have won.

Watch the quality

Because you only pay per sale, it is tempting to say yes to every partner. But the wrong affiliates can damage your brand or hijack sales you had already earned. Quality over quantity applies here too.

Thinking about affiliate as part of your growth? Book a meeting, and we will assess whether it fits your business.