Affiliate Marketing Terminology

Affiliate Marketing is a large business piece on the Internet. The (online) retail customer often does not know that he/she made the recent online purchase through an affiliate link. He/She sees a product of interest on a certain website, clicks on the link and completes the purchase wherever the link takes the customer. Every day people get introduced to affiliate marketing and want to make money from it. In many cases these new affiliates do not fully understand the affiliate world and make costly mistakes.

The following terms are important and every affiliate should know what they mean:

1) The Merchant: The merchant is any web site owner that wants to take advantage of performance based marketing. The merchant maintains and operates the affiliate program. The merchant decides how much he is willing to pay for each sale/lead that results from a visitor sent from an affiliate. Sometimes the merchant uses a 3rd party provider to operate the affiliate program.

2) The Affiliate network: An affiliate network acts as a 3rd party between the merchant and the associated affiliates. The affiliate network provides the technology to deliver the merchant's campaigns and offers. The affiliate network collects commission fees from the merchant and pays the affiliates that are part of the program. Well known affiliate networks are Commission Junction, AzoogleAds and Linkshare.

3) The Affiliate: An affiliate is a web site owner that promotes one or more merchants and their affiliate programs. The affiliate gets paid a commission if he/she can generate a sale/qualified lead for the merchant.

4) In most cases affiliate programs pay a commission per sale. This can be a fixed percentage or it can be a fixed dollar amount. Commission fees based on a certain percentage level per sale can be more rewarding for the affiliate if he/she is dealing with high priced items. Low priced items do not generate high income from affiliate sales. The following technical terms do exist:

Cost per sale(action) - CPA
Cost per click - CPC
Cost per lead - CPL
Cost per 1,000 -CPM

Overall - affiliate marketing can generate a full-time income for the affiliate. This is no easy task to accomplish though. One of the best known affiliate programs is the program operated by Amazon.com.

About The Author

Christoph Puetz is a successful Entrepreneur and international book author.

Websites operated by Christoph Puetz are The Web Hosting Resource Kit and Highlands Ranch Colorado and Affordable Vitamin Resources.

This article can be published by anyone as long as the resource box (About the Author) is posted on the website including the links. These links must be clickable.

Affiliate marketing offers earning opportunities, making it as one of the fastest growing industry in the World Wide Web today. It produces billions of dollars worth of income yearly. That is why many people are getting involved in it.

However, most of them are just getting into the jive of earning money without a concrete plan. You will have no strategies to be implemented, no guidelines to be followed.

In case that you are planning to get yourself involved in affiliate marketing, bear in your mind that it is a serious work. Though it is one of the easier ways of earning additional income, it still requires effort, perseverance, and a clear plan of action from your starting point up to the finish line.

An affiliate site that I highly recommend, that trains you and helps you get a clear plan of action is SITE BUILD IT (SBI). Why?

Here's why.. Many major universities (ex., University of Arizona), and colleges and even MBA programs include SBI! in their curriculum. No other online busineness building program has gained acceptance by the educational sector like SBI!

In addition to universities, stellar companies such as Clickbank and AdBrite recommend SBI! to their hundreds of thousands of affiliates and publishers. The reason is simple. SBI! makes them more effective online.

Only SBI! has garnered this type of support. Because only Site Build It! actually builds online success.

I speak from experience because I'm an owner of an SBI site myself and I can't believe how profitable this site can be. I love the traffic that I get from SBI. Everyone knows that traffic is the lifeblood of any online business. Only Site Build It! (SBI!) delivers the holy grail, traffic. Targeted traffic. Motivated, interested, warm, willing-to-buy visitors. That spells SUCCESS!!!