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ETIP #52
Affiliate Marketing: A Virtual Sales Force
Yes, you read correctly. You can now have a virtual sales force without any of the costs of recruiting, training or benefits. Affiliate marketing is loosely defined as a marketer (or company) that pays a pre-determined commission to their affiliate network (or group of website publishers) for each transaction that occurs on your website.
How does this work, you ask? Well, providers such as Commission Junction, Google, Linkshare and others serve as a matchmaking service between marketers looking to get their ad out to relevant audiences and website publishers looking to sell advertising real estate on their respective website.
The reason this is such an attractive strategy is because there is very little risk involved for the advertiser…you only pay for the sales you receive. In addition, all the billing and tracking is neatly handled by the providers mentioned above which have great reporting tools and data in real time.
