The Ins and Outs of the Affiliate Marketing!
It takes two to tango… and three to make a party. Yes, you read it right but if you are wondering how the line fits in the context of affiliate marketing, there is much that awaits you to know and consider. This performance-based marketing is slowly and steadily taking the web world in its stronghold, only through three role players in the core.
Essentials of this job
Gone are the days when the markets used to be pretty simple, restricted to the buyers and sellers. Now, there are many ads in betweens. When an advertiser (retailer/ product manufacturer/ service provider) is ready to pay a fixed sum to a publisher who allows promotion of the advertiser on the space he owns through commercial banners, links, text ad, etc, to target customer, there is affiliate marketing coming alive.
Here, the advertiser is not doing much of its own marketing, but is relying on the marketing efforts of the publisher. How well he takes care of the objective is partly decided by the creativity in the ads, and the response given by the potential customer. With basic functionality of the process in place, you must be curious to know- how it comes in to play. Well, the moment a surfer clicks any of the ad variants (or fills form asking his details) on the publishers page, he is transferred to the advertisers page. The circle is complete and a conversion is made. But, this is not the only aspect.
Cookies- Enhancing the surfing experience and exploiting business opportunities
Our old friend ‘cookies’ plays a vital role in making customer feel privileged. It stores some of the vital data of the surfer and his preferences (in addition to his login passwords, registration numbers, IDs, etc). There are certain websites that duly inform the web surfers about their cookie policy and ask if they agree to the terms and conditions of the site. When you start seeing the deals of the manner you searched for some while ago, this is just the kind of job web cookies are being assigned to do these days. And leave yourself in no doubt; affiliate marketing has been behind the scene all the time tracking you to exploit the business potential that might be available with you. All this is done mainly by the first party cookies.
At the end of the day, you see what you wanted to…right, which also in the process might generate business for the advertiser as well as publisher!
Some Blind Spots
Nothing comes with a caution, and affiliate marketing is also spared. There are malpractices that the network of affiliates are found to be getting involved. They are tracked to be aggressively doing ‘cookie-stuffing’, which in general could be understood as abusing the use of cookies (placing not one but more cookies on the computer without user being aware of it) to get illegitimate affiliate sales. Another way where affiliating can lead to defrauding is by raising false commissions by the affiliates. But several dark aspects cannot stop e-businesses to make the best of the network, networking and affiliate marketing. Just being vigilant can solve many issues and still do great business!
