Affiliate marketing is a collective and jointly beneficial business enterprise between merchants and publishers or website owners through which an affiliate is remunerated for each visitor or customer provided through their effort. At the time a customer makes a purchase of goods or services, part of the profit generated by that particular transaction is credited to the affiliate account as a commission. The compensation amounts can be based on a fixed value for each visit (pay per click), registration (payment per potential customer) or for each buyer (payment per sale).
However, like a currency, the affiliate marketing program also has its front and back.
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Advantage or Benefits of Affiliate Marketing
- Merchants get a wider place to sell their products and services, resulting in more customers and more sales.
- Merchants can win more customers without spending valuable time searching for them.
- Programs that track the compilation statistics of affiliate sites provide reliable and current customer behavior on trends and demands at no additional cost.
- The affiliate marketing program provides an easy way to create additional sources of income for publishers and website owners. Commercial product marketing banners generate instant sales where they get a commission.
- It does not require considerable investment by the affiliate.
- The affiliate does not have to worry about customer service, accounting and headaches related to electronic commerce since in affiliate marketing, the merchant takes care of everything; All the affiliate must do is promote and resell the product.
- An affiliated seller enjoys the luxury of being his own boss and working on his own time. You can work only a few hours or more and generate income 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, anywhere in the world.
- An affiliate marketer can still keep his current job or business and have affiliate marketing income to complement his financial position. With a laptop and an Internet connection, anyone can work almost anywhere, even while enjoying a vacation.
- For customers, they do not have to drive to the store of the merchant or retailer to physically buy the product or hire the services of a service provider. These are just some of the advantages of affiliate marketing. However, it is also better to keep in mind that this online business also has some disadvantages
Disadvantages
- There is a possibility that some merchants incur high commission costs and expensive installation and maintenance fees due to affiliated brokers/facilitators.
- Affiliates can participate in false and misleading advertising to obtain sales commissions. Unscrupulous affiliates can make claims and promises regarding the product and services, which are completely incorrect or extremely exaggerated. In cases like these, the merchant generally receives complaints and loses any potential consumer.
- Unscrupulous and dishonest merchants can arbitrarily close programs without informing affiliates and without paying commissions.
- Merchants can promise high commissions to attract new affiliates and then lower commission rates after one or two weeks.
- Link hijackers can hijack affiliate links and receive a commission payment.
- There is also false advertising, illegal use of trade names, logos or brands.
Regardless of the disadvantages, affiliate marketing is still one of the best ways to make money online. Marketing specialists simply have to understand that by doing their homework and research beforehand and by implementing simple security measures, they can easily deny all these disadvantages to enjoy the advantages of the affiliate marketing program.
