If you’ve used the internet even a little, you will be aware of affiliate marketing – you know when you get an email persuading you go to a website and sign up for a free trial. Are these sites genuine. How can they give free iPhones away? It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, when you delve a little deeper you’ll see a business plan which does make sense, and which seems to be working. Let me explain.
Affiliate Marketing – how it works
Affiliate marketing is a means of incentivising referrals to websites, a way to get people to get other people to sign up to trials. It might be an ad (like google adwords), or a promotional link banner through your website. It’s a bit like a sales commission for doing work on their behalf. If you put a link to another website on your website and someone clicks through it and then signs up to that product or service, you will get paid a commission for bringing in customers. Normally, this is a fairly small amount, but in some cases the stakes are much higher
How do they afford giving away gifts such as iPhones iPods and Playstation 3’s?
It’s easy to understand when you study it a bit. To claim your ‘free’ gift, you need to join up to a site such as kudosnetwork or freebiejeebies (for UK, USA and Canada) and sign up to a promotion such as an online film rental trial. Once you’ve done this, you select a gift that you want which will have been attributed a certain number of referrals. The higher the number of referrals the higher the value of the gift. Say you needed 18 referrals for your gift, you would need to get 18 people to sign up via your link. By the time your 18 friends have managed to get 18 more friends to sign up, the site has 324 customers, by the next 18, that number has risen to 5832. In a very short period of time, the numbers stack up very quickly, making a lot of money in commission for the site owner.
To buy advertising is not cheap. The advertisers know this, and look towards clever ways to get their product ‘out there’. With affiliate marketing the advertiser is paying the affiliate marketing site, who then passes on some of the money to you, who are actually bringing in the punters. Of course, it’s not free, but it only takes a little time and a little clever thinking.
How do the site owners make money?
The website owner doesn’t have to do the hard work, as you’re doing it for them. And you only get paid by them once you reach your target referrals. Meanwhile your referrals are out there doing more work for them. It’s you who has to do the clever thinking about who would be likely to sign up to the scheme; you filter out people who you think it would be wasted on; you find clever ways of targeting those who might be in the market for a new iPhone; effectively you are doing their marketing work for them. The affiliate site sits as the middleman between the advertisers and the target audience, and takes his cut like everyone else.
But if everyone completed their referrals, would the site lose money?
Theoretically if they gave away iPhones to everyone, then they might make a loss, but as is always the case, not everyone makes it to the number they need to get their free gift; only achieving a couple of referrals or none at all. They have contributed to the list of people signed up, yet have received nothing in return. It all balances out in the end. If it doesn’t, the number of referrals required per item goes up to reflect how savvy the customers are being, or how much revenue the site is receiving. In short they are not likely to lose out as long as the advertisers are happy, and as far as we can tell, they are.
What about the advertisers?
Possibly, if we were living in an ideal world, but people are people, and there’s a finely balanced pool out there who all behave differently. Do differently it’s almost predicable. Many will take out free trials and cancel them, many more will forget, and some will actually enjoy and use the service they signed up for. The companies who advertise get an opportunity to get you interested in their product, and if they win, they get a customer.
So does affiliate marketing work?
Yes. Absolutely. And for everyone involved. Just have patience and determination and you will get there. If you don’t believe me, have a look on the web and see for yourself. The internet is plastered with examples of success stories of affiliate marketing. The question is, what have you got to lose by giving it a go?
Examples of two UK based affiliate marketing sites for you to check out are: kudos network and freebiejeebies. Click on the links below to visit the sites. And Good Luck!
go to kudosnetwork AND freebiejeebies for additional information about how to start claiming your free gift. Also go to thebestthings.co.uk for further tips and to make your affiliate selling additional profitable.