Affiliate Marketing Using Mal's-E

Affiliate marketing is a specific type of performance-based promotion in which an organization rewards one or more affiliates per visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. The affiliate is rewarded for every action (or number of actions) that results in a sale or lead. In this article I will discuss affiliate marketing using Mals-E for our e-commerce company called "Moms-to-Be Real Simple". This article will cover the steps that we have taken to expand our affiliate marketing reach using affiliate programs such as Moms-to-Be Real Simple:

We choose to use a PPC affiliate marketing program called "Moms-to-Be Real Simple" (here on abbreviated as MTR). This program was developed by Commission Junction, a website publishing company known for providing quality publisher websites. The publishers at "Moms-to-Be Real Simple" have agreed to permit affiliate marketers to promote their programs by displaying their banners on their webpages.

When an affiliate uses our Moms-to-be Real Simple affiliate marketing system, he must register with Commission Junction and select from a pre-defined list of publishers. Commission Junction has several categories of publishers and offers a wide variety of services. There is also a category called Sponsored Ads. When placing an ad using Sponsored Ads, a marketer is paid a fixed commission based on the traffic that is redirected from his or her ads.

Commission Junction provides three different compensation methods to affiliate marketing programs. Cost Per Mille is their preferred method. This method pays the marketer for every person that clicks on the ad. Commission Junction advertises the cost per mille method on their home page. If you are an affiliate marketing program member and you select the cost per mille method, your gross commission will be higher than if you had selected any of the other methods.

Another method used by Commission Junction is CPA. Cost Per Action is a similar affiliate marketing strategy, but it differs because instead of paying the marketer only when someone clicks the affiliate ad, the marketer is paid every time someone is referred to the merchant website. The benefit to this arrangement is that there is no cost for the referring party. All the affiliate has to do is place the referring link on his or her web page and the affiliate management company will collect the commission. Before choosing this type of compensation method, it is important to determine whether the affiliate management company that you join has appropriate policies in place to protect the rights of the affiliate and to ensure that the affiliate receives his or her fair share of the revenue generated through the sale.

Some affiliate marketing programs offer merchants free or inexpensive traffic or credit. Free or inexpensive traffic can be enticing to many marketers because it offers a chance to earn a high commission quickly. Unfortunately, there is often little or no difference between this traffic and the traffic which merchants pay top dollar to receive. Because there are very few merchants classified ads online that cater to the low-cost or free traffic category, most affiliates have learned to accept this fact as a part of the affiliate marketing process.

Another common problem faced by affiliates is adware. Adware is a software program that silently installs itself on the computer of the user and tracks Internet surfing habits. When a user visits a site which is contained in the adware database, the software records the information. This information can then be sold to advertisers, who can use it to generate lucrative revenues. Affiliates working with merchants who provide this type of advertising should immediately remove the adware from their computers when they visit a site containing them.

By avoiding common pitfalls affiliate marketing can bring to the affiliate and the merchant, the successful entrepreneur can greatly increase his or her income. A good referral program provides a way to assure affiliates that the affiliate manager takes care of the people who refer him or her. A proper referral program ensures that all affiliates know that their success will depend upon those who helped them. By providing all the facts about affiliate marketing as well as the means to succeed, the merchants are doing their part to ensure that affiliate marketing succeeds in bringing wealth to their businesses.