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4.5 How Do Affiliates Promote Merchants?
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
- Learn how affiliates promote merchants.
Affiliates are online marketers who are paid on a performance basis. Every type of marketing
strategy will be found in the affiliate world, and affiliates can often be seen at the forefront of
breaking technology and applying it to marketing strategies.
The basic aim of an affiliate is to send targeted traffic (that means customers who are very likely to
perform the desired action) to a particular merchant’s Web site. Affiliates may promote as many
merchants in as many industries with as many tactics as they wish, but usually affiliates will start to
specialize.
Most of the tactics will be the same as those that the merchant employs but will reach a different part
of the Internet population. Effective tracking takes care of any overlap and will help a merchant to
adjust their spending for a most effective return on investment (ROI). The main types of affiliates
can be broken up into the following:
- Personal Web sites
- Content and niche sites
- E-mail lists
- Loyalty sites (points or cash back or charitable donations)
- Coupon and promotions sites
- Comparison shopping (see also PPC [pay-per-click] advertising)
- Search affiliates (search arbitrage)