Affilate marketing is becoming one of the largest and most profitable forms of marketing on the internet. It is the practice of receiving commision on selling the goods or services of another company. It is guaranteed that if you are an active user of the internet, that you have seen or even have been associated with an affiliate at some point, how can I claim this? Answer, Google. They have been one of the leading companies to recognise the potential of affiliate marketing and have exploited this potential in almost every location on the web today with the Google Affiliate Network. For example, when you use Googles search engine, the results on the right side are, most of the time, affiliate links. When you are on a website and you see 'Ads by Google', these too are affiliate links. Other major affiliate networks include Amazon Associates and the eBay Partner Network. If your still struggling to understand what affiliate marketing is, here is a diagram that might explain it more simply:
In this article I am going to explain a form of affiliate marketing that not many internet users are aware of, known as the 'Freebie Scene'. This uses affiliate marketing by getting people to sign up to their networks i.e. FreebieJeebies and getting their users to attract new customers to try company offers, for which FreebieJeebies affiliates for, by offering incentives such as Xbox 360's, Playstation 3's and even a Free iPhone.
I have already written a short description on how the freebie scene works on this website but I think it's important to explain and educate people with a full description of what affiliate marketing is and the benefits associated with it. Affiliate marketing is providing major opportunities to make a lot of money online, there are thousands if not millions of people making a living on the internet through affiliate marketing alone. To be honest, I don't make a living through affiliate marketing, but to this date (18/01/09) I have received over £11,000 in commission through the 'freebie scene' over the last 2 and a half years, which isn't bad, but i do know a handful of people making more than a comfortable living through this form of marketing and working from home. In fact, affiliate marketing seems to be the most popular job/income source for people working from home. Hopefully the amount that I have received alone, as a student!, gives you an insight into what and how beneificial this marketing can be. If not, maybe I should tell you that I only recently started to work seriously on this and within one and a half months, I was able to accumilate this:
If you want to be successful or make serious money doing this then one quote I recommend you keep on your mind at all times is: "The key to being successful with affiliate marketing is finding a niche market, exploiting it, dominating it and controlling it before anyone else does". If you can't find a niche to exploit and your new to affiliate marketing then you'll surely find it difficult competing with the current competition.