Conversion Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a new field within the marketing industry. In its basic form its where two companies share in the revenue and cost of an e-marketing program. This form of marketing was brought on by the explosion of the Internet. However, the concept of revenue sharing predates even the origination of affiliate marketing. The translation of revenue sharing principles, or converting marketing responses, to mainstream e-commerce actually came on the scene almost 4 years after the origination of the web, in November of 1994.

Affiliate marketing is an Internet based marketing practice where a business rewards another (affiliate) business for each visitor or customer they bring to their website. This increase is usually a by product of their affiliate business partner doing external marketing efforts. Through these efforts they are converting marketing responses into a positive situation for their partners. The success of these programs has sparked a whole new niche of business.

You’ll find that affiliate marketing relies on performance based programs to promote the products and services of their partners. More often than not, you will find that affiliate marketing programs overlap with other Internet marketing methods. The more common marketing methods used in converting marketing responses are:

* Search engine optimization (SEO)
o Is the process of improving the volume of traffic to one’s website, via natural, organic or algorithmic search results
* Paid search engine marketing
o Following the same methods as SEO, however, with this format you are paying for primary positioning
* E-mail marketing
o A form of direct marketing that send out electronic mail instead of paper mail. It’s a means of communicating on a mass level very quickly.
* Display advertising
o You’re more typical electronic advertising formats; i.e., web banners or billboards

Using performance marketing within your affiliate marketing plan is essential. If you can track the overall response you will be able to establish a premium payment schedule. If you can mechanically pull this information you will be able to negotiate a better contract with your partner. If not, you will be left with paying for any responder without specified conditions. Payment methods available to most companies using converting marketing response methods today are:

* Cost per sale  (CPS) or Cost per action (CPA)
o Requires that a consumer not only visit their website, but they must also be converted. Therefore it’s in the best interest of the advertisers to send the most closely targeted traffic to their partner’s website.
* Cost per click (CPC)
o Requires that the consumer not only be aware of the ad but must also click on it
* Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
o Requires that the partner only needs to make their partners advertising available on their website

You’ll find that affiliate marketing is overlooked by many advertisers. Most companies don’t see this method of converting marketing as a valuable tool.  They haven’t been able to completely understand its value within their marketing priorities. However, from a strategic marketing stand point, affiliate marketing plays a significant role in the success of any internet marketing plan.