Affiliate types

Affiliate marketing allows for the creation and growth of many different affiliate types. You may have experience in PPC advertising, or you may create original content for sites or blogs, or even a large circle of friends and followers on social networks. Whichever the case, there is certainly a way for you to monetize your knowledge or traffic via affiliate marketing.

The most important (but not only) affiliate types are:

  • CONTENT SITES

    Affiliates in this category run content sites (blogs, websites, portals) and monetize their sites’ traffic, by sending users to advertisers’ pages via banners or text links. These sites can either be general interest sites, in which case they target high volumes of traffic, or niche content sites, in which case the traffic volume is not as high but the conversion rate (from visit to sale) is much higher, providing the selected affiliate program is related to the content site.

    PPC AFFILIATE

    PPC affiliates use their PPC advertising experience or knowledge in order to send users directly to advertisers’ websites (in other words they do not have their own websites), usually via Google Adwords, but also via Facebook and other search engines. This type of affiliate marketing entails a relatively high risk, as affiliates pay for users on a per click basis, but only receives payment from the network once a sale or lead has been completed.

  • EMAIL / NEWSLETTER

    These affiliates own databases of user emails, to which they regularly send out offers and suggestions via newsletter. As with any communication via email, it is crucial that the respective regulation and best practice is followed, i.e. all emails have been collected legally and all users have proactively requested to receive emails from the affiliate. Newsletters usually contain offers and other promotions.

    SOCIAL MEDIA

    The rise of social media and community sites like Facebook and Twitter have lead to the creation of a new type of affiliate, who sends users via his/her account on social media websites. Affiliates in this category don’t rely on their sites’ users, but on their circle of friends, followers, members of various social media accounts like Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts, boards on Pinterest etc.

  • SHOPPING SERVICES

    Affiliates in this category include websites that have been created in order to offer a specific service designed to help and promoted online purchases. Examples of sites of this type are price comparison websites, meta-search engines, review sites, aggregators etc. In reality, monetization of these sites comes from the content itself, as users are redirected to retailers’ sites in order to complete their purchase.

    INCENTIVISED TRAFFIC

    Incentivised traffic described visitors who have received some form of compensation for visiting a site and completing a specific action (e.g. registration or sale). The compensation is often in the form of actual money (e.g. cashback sites) or in the form of virtual currency (e.g. points or virtual money for online games etc). In the case of cashback sites, affiliates receive commission from the network which they then essentially split with their users.

 

AFFILIATES

 
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