Affiliate marketing is an advertising model where a company pays compensation to third-party publishers to generate traffic or leads to the company's products and services. The third-party publishers are referred to as affiliates and the commission fee incentives them to find ways to promote the company.

1. FUNDAMENTALS OF AFFILIATE MARKETING
HISTORY OF AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate Marketing was began in 1989 with a man named William J.
Tobin, the world’s first internet marketer. The founder of PC Flowers &
Gifts, Tobin conceptualised the idea of affiliate marketing and launched
his program on the Prodigy Network. This model involved paying the
Prodigy network a commission on every sale. By 1993, it was generating
more than $6 million dollars yearly for Prodigy. This success
encouraged Tobin to patent the idea in 1996, although this wasn’t
issued until 2000.
Beginning of amazon
Amazon were arriving in 1996 with their associates program. They were
not the first to start an affiliate program, they were the first to attract
global interest. Their model involved paying a commission as a
percentage of the sold product, and this became the model for many
affiliate networks that followed.
In the same year, Johnson and Samuel Gerace established BeFree, and
Linkshare was founded by Stephen and Heidi Messer.
These were followed in 1998 by Commission Junction, set up by some
students from the University of California Santa Barbara and now the
world’s biggest affiliate marketing provider, and the Clickbank Network,
founded by Tim and Eileen Barber.
First Affiliate Program Directory.
In 1997 Refer-it.com was launched by Wayne Marciano. It provide an
overview to the main affiliate networks to both affiliates and merchants,
this became the first Affiliate Program Directory.
Rules and Regulations
In 2000, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission published guidelines for
affiliate marketing in regard to disclosures. The “Dot Com Disclosures:

2. Information about Online Advertising” regulations helped strengthen
affiliate marketing legitimacy in the world of online marketing.
The legislation was updated in 2008, requiring bloggers to disclose
their relationship with the companies they are promoting.
Introduction to advertiser and publisher
An advertiser is the one who pays to get his ad shown on different websites.
Usually, it’s a company that has a product and connects with publishers to
promote an ad through their websites.
A publisher is a person or a company that’s in charge of connecting the
advertiser’s product with the end user, as they are the traffic provider.
To be a successful publisher:
1. Build your site, your business model, branding, following, and website traffic
Choose your market niche & focus

3. ● Determine your business model & plan
● Build your website, blog, or custom social media site with original, quality content and
add to it frequently
● Generate traffic to your site & build your audience
● Understand basic affiliate marketing monetization & how it fits your site
2- Become a Affiliate Network Publisher
● Review the requirements for new publisher
● Join affiliate network and set up your account.
● Decide which advertiser product to promote.
● Build partnership with advertisers.
● Get affiliate links for your sites.
● Promote affiliate products on your website.
● Provide transparency and compliance to terms.
● Track earning and manage your affiliate program
3.Grow your program and your revenue
● Identify additional revenue opportunities and optimize.
● Consider email marketing.
● Continue learning about industry ,technology and business.
● Become one of the top publishers.

4. AFFILIATE NETWORK
Affiliate networks helps publishers to monetize their inventory by
providing a variety of options for running campaigns (tracking links,
creatives etc.). For advertisers, affiliate network services and benefits
include payment processing, ad tracking technology, ad campaign
reporting tools, as well as access to a vast database of publishers.
Affiliate networks work on a CPA (Cost per Action) based model which
means that they can effectively deliver a 100% fill rate for publishers.
Some publishers, known as ‘affiliates or ‘media buyers’ will create or
buy traffic using advertising specifically to promote campaigns from a
network.

5. How do affiliate networks work?

6. Analysis of affiiate networks
There are six ways to amplify the analysis of your affiliate
program data:
1. Understand your performance averages
2. Analyze performance at the campaign

7. 3. Monitor new customer activity
4. View performance by device type
5. Review the average time between affiliate click and
completed conversions
6. Dig deeper to understand your customer.
Managing affiliate network accounts
If you have a lot of affiliates working with you, then you will need to monitor
each of their activities daily and communicate with them when needed. You
must be aware of how the affiliates are marketing your products, and this only
happens with constant monitoring. There are following steps to manage
affiliates.
❖ Get the best tracking you can buy or build
❖ Know how much you can spend per lead
❖ Know where your affiliate partners are advertising
❖ Measure result daily
❖ Build good relationships
Introduction to top affiliate networks

8. The Full List of Affiliate Networks
● Amazon Affiliates
● eBay Partner Network
● Commission Junction
● Ratuken Linkshare
● Tradedoubler
● Leadbolt Labs
● Mobvista
● ArmorAds
● Mobidea
● Mobusi
● Clickdealer
● Appitate
● AdCombo

9. ● Tapgerine
● Libertex
● TopOffers
● TrafficShark.Pro
● Glispa
● Admitad
● Matomy Media Group
● BitterStrawberry
● MUNDO Media
● PeerFly
● CPAlead
● MaxBounty
● AdWork Media
● CrakRevenue
● Clickbooth
● Convert2media
● TerraLeads
● CommissionFactory
● Awin
● FlexOffers
● ReviMedia
● MoreNiche
● Button
● AffiliateFuture
● SellHealth
● MarketHealth
● Billy Mobile
● Wewe Media Network
● Avazu
● ADXMI

10. ● Aragon Advertising
● Webgains
TOP FIVE NETWORKS
1. ShareASale
2.ClickBank
3. CJ Affiliate by Conversant
4. Rakuten Marketing

11. 5. TradeDoubler
Conclusion
From the above paragarphs we have got an idea about
affiliate marketing,its importance,how it works,managing affiliate
networks, top affiliate networks etc.To study more about affilIaite
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