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By Neil Anuskiewicz
Why Affiliate Marketing is Important
Affiliate marketing started in 1998. The premise was very simple: there are e-commerce Websites that need visitors through various channels. Other Websites are a possible channel for making sales but you are only going to put a link on your Website if you earn a commission.
If you have affiliate links on your Website and a prospective buyer clicks one and buys, then you get a commission. The e-commerce site links the sale to the link on your Website through a unique offer code that is embedded in your link.
There are basically two kinds of products and services out there: those that customers have to re-purchase (e.g., books) and those that provide recurring revenue. A couple of examples of recurring revenue services are Web hosting and email marketing services. The thing that recurring revenue services have in common is that the customer does not, barring a problem with the service, make the buying decision over-and-over again each time they need the service. If they are happy with the service, they keep paying for it every single month.
Why is Recurring Revenue Better for Affiliate Marketers?
With a monthly recurring revenue service, you sell a customer the service once and they pay every month until they cancel the service. If you are part of good affiliate programs with companies that sell high-quality recurring revenue services, you can earn commission from that customer's buying decision for months or even years after the initial sale. As you bring in more business through your affiliate link, your monthly commissions grow. Over time the recurring commission can add up to a significant income stream.
If you are an affiliate for a Web site that sells a product like books, you get a commission every time someone clicks on your Website and buys a book from the company for which you are an affiliate. The problem is that you have to rely on people coming every month to buy books through your link and you have little opportunity to earn monthly, recurring revenue from the same customers. You have to rely on making a lot of sales through your affiliate link every month to keep the income flowing.
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