For the full presentation, go to our highly acclaimed Udemy course here: https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-guide-to-affiliate-marketing-for-advertisers/?referralCode=E6D1916527FDEB3BBEB0 Or further your Partnerships & Affiliate Marketing career with the Partnercademy Masterclass course... https://partnercademy.thinkific.com/

1. Understanding the Affiliate Marketing
Channel; the short guide
If you're just starting out in Affiliate Marketing or considering it as a
career option, whether as an Affiliate Executive client-side or working as
an Account Executive agency-side. This short guide takes you on a
whistle-stop tour of the Affiliate Marketing channel.
What is the Affiliate Marketing channel?
As the image below describes, Affiliate Marketing is one of the earliest
forms of digital marketing. Since the dawn of the internet, sites have
asked other sites whether they will promote them. It therefore sits within
the big 4 of paid digital marketing; alongside Display, PPC, and Social.

2. Unlike the other big 4 channels, the Affiliate Marketing channel is unique.
The Affiliate channel is the only channel where you only pay for the sales
or leads that are made. Whereas in the Display channel you pay for
impressions, in PPC you pay for clicks, and in Social for either.
In the Affiliate Marketing channel, in most cases, you pay per conversion
or completed sale. It is therefore the last remaining and the purest, true,
performance channel.
It’s this very reason that almost every major brand still has an Affiliate
Marketing channel in some format. Whether that’s a full-blown Affiliate
Program, or simply a handful of Partnerships.

3. What are Incentivised vs Non-incentivised
Affiliates?
Affiliates, those that promote your brand to their audience, can be split
into incentivised and non-incentivised partners.
What are Incentivised Affiliate sites?
Those affiliate sites that are ‘incentivised’ will include an offer, discount,
or cashback. Sites such as Topcashback and Quidco, in the U.K, are
some of the largest cashback sites with 10m+ members.
Topcashback is one of the U.K's most popular discount and
cashback sites:

4. Quidco is one of the largest cashback sites in the world:
What about voucher sites in the Affiliate Marketing
channel?
There are also voucher sites like VoucherCodes or MyVoucherCodes,
who show coupon codes for different advertisers, and often feature
exclusive offers.

5. There are also demographic-specific discount sites like Kidstart, who
focus on kids offers, or Easyfundraising which donate the cashback to
charity.
What are Non-incentivised Affiliate sites?
‘Non-incentivised’ sites can include offers and discounts, but that’s not
why they exist. They exist for informative reasons, such as advice,
comparison, or reviews.
These include Moneysavingexpert, the largest money-saving portal in
the U.K. with 15m+ members.
What about comparison sites in the Affiliate Marketing
channel?
There are large comparison sites such as GoCompare, Compare the
market, or niche comparison sites such as BroadbandChoices that focus
purely on broadband comparison.

6. There are also content publishers like Lovemoney and ThisIsMoney who
focus on 'money' content, or fan enthusiasts sites like DriveTribe for car
fans.

7. What is a 'publisher' in the Affiliate Marketing
channel?
In the Affiliate Marketing industry, these sites described above are
known as publishers. Because they offer brands (or otherwise known as
'advertisers') the option to 'advertise' on their 'published' site/content.
Depending on the level of control within your affiliate program, the
publisher will place you on their site via a text link, whole article, widget
or banner, email or within their comparison table. This level of exposure
is where you’ll engage with their audience and encourage them to click
through to your site to make the sale.
Conclusion; Getting to know the Affiliate
Marketing channel:
The Affiliate Marketing channel is an exciting channel to be running or
working in. It's the only true-performance channel remaining. Websites
all around the internet, whether incentive-based or not, will link to your
brand and send you traffic. This is the crux of Affiliate Marketing and
makes it an excellent channel to be growing for your business.

8. Disclaimer
The author takes no responsibility for any misuse of information
contained in this guide. All information has been taken from actual
events and imagery or screenshots from free sources. If any owner or
brand wishes to have any information removed, they may get in touch.
He is not responsible for any copyright infringement. This is used purely
for educational purposes and is happy to edit if required.