Benefits of Affiliate Marketing
I entered the affiliate marketing arena a few years ago and it was definitely a “by the seat of my pants” learning process. After experimenting with several affiliate marketing vendors, I have settled on just a few core providers whose values blends comfortably with my own personal criteria and a vision for my brand.
It has taken me at least a year to research, experiment and filter the vendors based on the values I wanted to adhere to. Today I personally favor Share-A-Sale because of the increased volume of eco-conscious and Fair Trade merchants in their directory. The merchants I have created an affiliate agreement with are listed on my Eco-Friendly 101 and FairTrade101 sites. Share-a-Sale also offers an extremely user friendly process for the capture of embed codes and for uploading and creating organized product pages. They also offer affiliate contracts for their own product and offer a fairly decent commission for each purchaser a site sends.
In addition I use Commission Junction, LinkShare, Google Affiliate and Amazon or work directly with a merchant such as Freshbooks. All of these offer solid and easy to use reporting and tracking systems. On the side-bar or within the body of my emails, (as in this one) I post links to merchants who have a proven record of providing great products and excellent customer service. Most will have a social action program in place within their company and give back to community in some way. Some I have a reciprocal linking agreement with, where the only interest is in the sharing of one another's link and no commission is earned. Many of the reciprocal contacts were introduced via one or another Social Media network.
I've included an excerpted article from Answers.com which offers an excellent review about this subject. If you have a website, blog or send regular email updates, it is almost a no-brainer to create affiliate contracts so that you can generate “passive” income for your business, your non-profit site or your cause. If done with transparency, integrity and you choose merchants wisely, there is no limit to the many creative ways you can market their products.
Warm Regards,
Sylvia Waxman
(866) 961-8833
I entered the affiliate marketing arena a few years ago and it was definitely a “by the seat of my pants” learning process. After experimenting with several affiliate marketing vendors, I have settled on just a few core providers whose values blends comfortably with my own personal criteria and a vision for my brand.
It has taken me at least a year to research, experiment and filter the vendors based on the values I wanted to adhere to. Today I personally favor Share-A-Sale because of the increased volume of eco-conscious and Fair Trade merchants in their directory. The merchants I have created an affiliate agreement with are listed on my Eco-Friendly 101 and FairTrade101 sites. Share-a-Sale also offers an extremely user friendly process for the capture of embed codes and for uploading and creating organized product pages. They also offer affiliate contracts for their own product and offer a fairly decent commission for each purchaser a site sends.
In addition I use Commission Junction, LinkShare, Google Affiliate and Amazon or work directly with a merchant such as Freshbooks. All of these offer solid and easy to use reporting and tracking systems. On the side-bar or within the body of my emails, (as in this one) I post links to merchants who have a proven record of providing great products and excellent customer service. Most will have a social action program in place within their company and give back to community in some way. Some I have a reciprocal linking agreement with, where the only interest is in the sharing of one another's link and no commission is earned. Many of the reciprocal contacts were introduced via one or another Social Media network.
I've included an excerpted article from Answers.com which offers an excellent review about this subject. If you have a website, blog or send regular email updates, it is almost a no-brainer to create affiliate contracts so that you can generate “passive” income for your business, your non-profit site or your cause. If done with transparency, integrity and you choose merchants wisely, there is no limit to the many creative ways you can market their products.
Warm Regards,
Sylvia Waxman
(866) 961-8833
