In this Overview we will look at what affiliate programs are, how affiliate marketing compares with other online business models, what makes up a good, and a not so good affiliate program, and then we will take a brief look at the affiliate program at Wealthy Affiliate, which happens to be one of the best affiliate opportunities for many reasons. We will look at all this below!
What Is an Affiliate Program?
The affiliate program is the protocol a company who needs its product or service promoted offers to affiliates (those who promote.) In the protocol, or could I say contract?, the company sets forth the rules and regulations by which affiliates run their promotions. It comes with set commission rates and certain thresholds (if any) that determine the payout. For example some affilate programs will not pay out anything until a certain threshold is met, such as at least $200 or so. There may be a time restraint as well, so many units sole by such a time.
In cases like this, the earnings go into a sort of savings account. Affiliates don’t lose what they earn unless they drop out.
Affiliate programs usually come with tools, such as advertising banners and what’s called email swipe files, which are pre-written emails affiliates can use in their autoresponder service. Many times, affiliate programs also come with incentives. What’s called super affiliates, make it high in the affiliate program’s leader boards and some nice prizes await the best, such as all-expense paid trips to Las Vegas and nice money prizes.
Getting into the right affiliate program can be a highly lucrative undertaking!
How Does Affiliate Marketing Stack Up?
Here are some of the most common business models found on the Internet. A short discussion below will give a few details about what each are and how difficult it would be to enter that type of business.
- Advertising
- Affiliate
- Brokerage
- Community
- Independently
- Manufacturer (Direct)
- Merchant
- Subscription
- Utility
Advertising
This is advertising on a large scale that would be considered media, for example Yahoo and Google use what’s called contextual advertising wherein a person’s searching results in advertising in the results that match whatever context of the search was. There are many other varants of this type of advertising and constitutes an entire industry.
Affiliate
A business agree ment between those who promote products and services and the companies who provide the products and services. Affiliate marketing is highly suitable for the Internet and is therefore, an extremely popular business model on the Internet. It is also easy to start at entry level and has very low overhead.
Brokerage
This is any marketplace that connects sellers with buyers on a large scale. eBay is the famous online auction example of this. Affiliate networks are also an example as they connect affiliates with businesses that offer affiliate programs.
Community
This is a community-driven entity on the Internet that usually offers free products and services. Open Source is a good example. This model allows for the advertisments of proprietory products and services and donations which bring in revelue.
Manufacturer
These are the providers of tangible goods. They use the Internet to advertise their products to merchants at wholesale prices and sometimes the general public as well. Manufacturing facilities and raw materials are required to produce the goods. Manufacturers usually outsource the online advertising to firms who provide this service.
Merchant
Merchants come in all shapes and sizes. They range from brick and mortar establishments with tangible goods purchased at wholesale prices to strictly digital products. The products are made availible directly to the consumer. Examples include The Home Depot, Amazon, Walmart and others.
Subscription
These are any online offerings that consumers use which they pay for periodically, thus recurring sales. Consider that renting month to month is the same kind of arrangement. Many online businesses resort to this business model when they build membership sites that are subscription-based.
Utility
Similar to the subscription business model, businesses that use this model online are usually Internet Service Providers which charge by the minute, day, etc, this is also known as metering and is very similar to phone service that charges by the minute and electric/water utilities that charge by the amount of the commodoty used. This business model isn’t very common on the Internet anymore.
Affiliate Programs Are Not Created Equal
How well an affiliate marketer does with respect of making commissions for a product certainly depends on how skilled that person is in using the affilate tools needed and promoting the product or service. But it isn’t always the affiliate.
A product or service that isn’t up to par with its intended audience is yet another issue.
However, the affiliate program itself can be the cause of failure for affiliates who come into it. The commission may be very low. In this case, the affiliate must compensate by getting more consumers to purchase the product. There are many other reasons why the affiliate program itself may be poor. Of course, if the advertising campaign that comes with the product is shoddy, it may not effectively convert.
Thee are huge retailers, such as Amazon, Walmart, and Home Depot, mentiioned above, which have excellent products but their commissions are very low. Amazon is notorious for this though it also has aa wide variety of products for the affiliate to promote. This of course makes more work for the affiliate, but it works. Amazon also has some very high-ticket products.
Some affiliate programs have lower ticket items but high commission rates, up to 50% and even more! Some of these can be found in affiliate networks (these are brokers, or marketplaces where the affiliate and afffiliate programs come together.)
On the other hand, there are products out there that are downright fraudulent, even entire affiliate networks that offer almost entirely products and services of this type, They usually operate from out of places like China and other eastern countries. Clicksure, a well-known marketplaces where affiliates and pirates come together, is an example. In these places there are merchants who sell complete rubbish to make boatloads of money from unsuspecting folks who are deceived into purchasing the products and services by equally fraudulent advertising which powerfully draws customers in.
There are those affiliate programs offered by highlly reputable companies that have true value in their products, and as a result, are popular and loved by end users. On top of this, their commission rates are high!
Finding a company like this with such an affiliate program is like finding Acres of Diamonds!
The Top-Notch Affiliate Program at WA
What makes Wealthy Affiliate such an awesome place?
It was created and is run by two owners who care for their membership and have built a community of like-minded members who are taught the valuable lessons of paying-it-forward, a mindset that is not shared by most online marketers out there. Though Wealthy Affiliate is 1.2 million members strong (and growing) those that become successful from its world-renowned training and business resources, make up a very small portion of the entire affiliate marketing world.
Though this may be true, the amount of revenue, though unknown, was known back in 2010, to be hundreds of millions!
Wealthy Affiliate was much smaller in its membership size back then and is now more than ten times larger. With even more effective training, business tools, platform and other resources today, the revenue produced by Wealthy Affiliate must be staggering!
Weealthy Affiliate offers an affiliate program for its members with a generous 50% commission rate, an outstanding product to promote and a community mindset to be proud of! Further, Wealthy Affiliate is an online business training platform that teaches affiliate marketing! In a combination like this, nobody aspiring to be an entrepreneur can go wrong by beginning their online business at Wealthy Affiliate!
With high integrity, excellence, where black hat marketing is forbidden and the pay-it-forward mentality not only shows forth from the owners, but permeates throughout the entire community.
Wealthy Affiliate has changed hundreds of thousands of lives of those who will do the work, who will implement what they have learnt at Wealthy Affiliate and take part in the WA Affiliate Program!
Final Thoughts
We have taken a look at a truly phenominal online business that has become a legend of our time in every way possible. Wealthy Affiliate has an interesting history, a performance that can’t be beat by any other online business of its kind, and oen that has never seen a moment of stagnation since 2005, and probably before it was even started by two visionaries that stand by the sides of over a million who have been, or are still within its walls!
We have taken a textual and pictorial tour through its halls and explored its ideals and objectives. Truly, the day I first laid my eyes on Wealthy Affiliate, I knew I had found my place! I am a proud member to this day, not only for what it teaches, and the fact that I make an online income continuously since that first started happening more than six years ago, but everything for which Wealthy Affiliate stands!
It is a monument of success in it own stead, and everybody who has been touched by its founders Kyle & Carson.
There is one more Segment to go and we come to the end. It will touch upon what it takes to join the Wealthy Affiliate Community, what you expect from it, what it expects from you and everything in between.
Are you ready to be a wealthy affiliate? Why not join the hundreds of thousands who have? Please check out my Wealthy Affiliate Review. Else, check out the final Segment by clicking on the link at the very bottom of this page.
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