Affiliate and Partner Marketing

Affiliate and Partner Marketing is analogous to a licensed distribution network for a brick and mortar business. This is as a way for an internet operation to sell its products or services by signing up individuals or companies (affiliates) who market the company’s products / services for a commission.

Depending the terms of the agreement, the business will pay the affiliates a commission fee for every lead or sale they drive to your website. Your main goal should be to find affiliates that will reach untapped markets. You should take care that you and your affiliates are not competing for the same customers. That is, your affiliates are driving customers your way from market segments that you are not actively pursuing. In general, it is a low risk investment because (setup and admin costs aside) you pay for sales, not clicks.

Traditionally, this is a push-pull relationship with the brand owner (you) creating content / offers and the affiliates promoting these assets, usually through a network of websites. What matters to you is, do these networks of websites have relevance to your products / services.

There is no hard and fast rule for the maximum number of affiliate partners with whom to maintain a direct relationship; but you may want to keep the count to 10 to 20 for each person on the affiliate team. Just keep in mind your business objectives and remain cognizant that the better you can “manage” them the more productive they will be for your business.