3.6 Affiliate marketing/referral selling

What is it?

Affiliate marketing is where you refer customers to other businesses via links to their web site from your web site or emails and receive commissions for each customer you refer to the other business. They are essentially revenue sharing arrangements between online vendors or sellers and resellers or affiliates.

If the business is "multi-level" you also receive commissions from the customers referred by other businesses you have introduced.

Conversely, you can set up your own affiliate marketing program to have other businesses sell your products and services for you by paying them a commission.

Example

The following website provides an example of an affiliate program broker website. This business simply promotes all the information about a large range of affiliate programs. As a reseller (affiliate participant) you could visit this site to choose from a range of programs that complement your own business products. You should carefully assess the costs and benefits of each program before proceeding.

The first screen shows the sorts of categories of affiliate programs being promoted.

The second screen displays the affiliate program information published by a business enlisting resellers (Affiliate Program). If you decide to establish your own affiliate program, you would display this type of information on your website along with an affiliate application form. (shown below)