How exactly does affiliate marketing work?

Affiliate marketing is a way to make passive income online from your website, social media following or anything else you can utilise to drive traffic to advertiser’s websites. As an Affiliate your job is to drive new sales or leads to an Advertisers website. In return you will earn commission.

As a start-up internet business it can be difficult to build relationships with big advertisers and get them to spend with you. With affiliate marketing it’s easy as you can utilise affiliate networks to quickly work with large and small brands.

Step 1

A Consumer visits an Affiliates website or views an Affiliates advert on the web.

Step 2

The Consumer then decides to click on one of the Affiliates adverts that is from an Affiliate Network.

This visit to the advertisers website is then automatically tracked to the Affiliate.

Step 3

The Consumer goes on to make a purchase or completes a lead form.

The action required to earn commission will vary depending on the Affiliate Program.

Step 4

The Affiliate earns commission if the Consumer did the action required by the affiliate program.

This is usually automatically tracked to the Affiliates account in the Affiliate Network.