by: Sandra Stammberger
Total views: 79 Word Count: 434
An affiliate network is a prime way for an online business
to increase its customer base, and therefore its sales. By forming an affiliate
network, the business is actually creating a large group of commissioned sales
people that cost the business nothing in the way of increased overhead. The
affiliate network also raises the possibility of increased sales because every
individual or business that is a member of the affiliate network is actively
attempting to market the products or services of the company.
A prime example of a successful affiliate network is Amazon.com, which gained
extremely rapid growth through acquisition of many affiliates, at least in the
thousands, and by some accounts the hundreds of thousands, since its beginning.
Many other Internet based companies have used the business model Amazon
pioneered as an affiliate network with great success. Overstock, eBay, Barnes
and Noble, Half.com, and many more have formed an affiliate network that is
extremely profitable.
The creation of an affiliate network has even spread to organizations involved
in career search and job hunting. The larger and most well-known organizations,
such as Monster, Careerbuilder and Hotjobs all use the affiliate network model
for marketing, and to increase sales. They encourage web sites to post ads on
their sites, which can be text based ads, banners, buttons, or other links to
encourage web surfers to click on the link and check out their sites through the
affiliate network. This gives them far more advertising than would be possible
through other, more costly, advertising methods. It also helps the members of
the affiliate program because they make money whenever someone clicks on the
link and makes a purchase with their affiliate partner.
Take a look at all of the banner ads on the web sites that you visit. Chances
are your web site is a member of at least one affiliate network, if not of
several. Yahoo, for example, runs affiliate network ads on all of its sites.
Some of these are for the services it offers, such as Hotjobs, and others for
companies that are part of their affiliate network. You may have noticed ads for
Netflix on Yahoo for instance. Yahoo receives so many hits and unique visitors
that chances are good that people join Netflix on a daily basis from Yahoo, and
when they do so through the affiliate network links, Yahoo receives a
predetermined affiliate fee. This arrangement is almost like a permanent
finder's fee and works out well for both ends of the transaction, and also works
well for the customer, as it provides useful links to services that they may be
interested in.