What is Affiliate Marketing?

In this day and age it seems as though everyone is trying to make money online.  You hear about those people that are making thousands of dollars a month, and also the ones that are making only a few dollars a month.  What makes the difference between the two?  How can I become the one that is making thousands of dollars a month?  I have done a lot of research and tried to find the answers to these questions.

There are many ways to make money online, and if you are just starting out it can be very overwhelming.  If you have started your search to find the best method for you, then most likely you have seen the words affiliate marketing around every corner, but what does that term mean?

Affiliate Marketing is simply when a business pays a different party (the affiliate) for every referral or sale that they make for them.  It can be a great way for everybody involved to earn money.  When I initially found out about affiliate marketing, it seemed like it was very complicated, but while I was doing research on the subject I came across an article that put it into perspective for me. 

Scott Brandley, an expert on the subject of affiliate marketing explains it by comparing the website that is selling the product to McDonalds.  He talks about how McDonalds serves billions of people because they have multiple locations.  He goes on to say:

“While McDonald’s duplicates themselves and sells billions in products, you only have one site where you can sell your products. In other words, whether in the real world or online, your success is limited by the number of locations you have.

Lucky for you, there’s something you have that McDonald’s doesn’t.… While it takes millions of dollars to build a physical McDonald’s restaurant, you can build unlimited virtual locations for pennies. While McDonald’s is forced to market their products under their own name, you can market your products under unlimited domain names with the help of affiliates.”

So whether you are a website owner wanting to find a better way to sell your product, or you don’t want the hassle of selling a product plus managing a website, then affiliate marketing may be the answer you are looking for.

Once you have determined that you would like to give affiliate marketing a try, the next step is to do your research.  There are a lot of programs out there designed to make the process easier, but it is important to pick one that will work best for you.