Affiliate marketing programs are at the core of many successful global brands today. The idea behind it is that as a brand, you can find people to promote your products and earn a commission if people actually end up buying thanks to your members promotions.

Affiliate programs are based on revenue sharing. If you have a product and want to sell more, you can offer promoters a financial incentive through an affiliate program. If you have no product and want to make money, then you can promote a product that you feel has value and earn an income from it as an affiliate marketer.

So what exactly is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.

As a brand, affiliate programs can help you find people who love your company and you can build an ecosystem of people you can help earn an income by selling your products. 

Who are the parties when doing affiliate marketing?

The Merchant: 

• Sometimes also known as the creator, the seller, the brand, the retailer, or the vendor. This is the party that creates the product. It can be a company of any size, from solo entrepreneurs to startups to massive Fortune 500 companies, anyone could be the merchant behind an affiliate marketing program. They don’t even have to be actively involved. They just have to have a product to sell.

The Affiliate:

• This party is sometimes also known as the publisher. Affiliates in your programs on Dovetale are focused on helping you organize your community members who can help promote your products whether by word of mouth, sms, social media or any other medium they own to project their voice. An affiliate can produce a few hundred dollars in commissions each month or tens of millions of dollars.

  
  

  It’s where the marketing happens. An affiliate promotes one or multiple affiliate products and tries to attract and convince potential customers of the value of the merchant’s product so that they actually end up buying it. This can also be done by giving your affiliates the ability to give their audience discounts or gift cards.

  
  

  Affiliates have a wide range of tactics that can be used to help them promote the products they love such as, giveaways, reviews, exclusive offers, contests, etc.

The Consumer:

• The customer or consumer makes the affiliate system go ’round. Without sales, there aren’t any commissions to hand out and no revenue to be shared.

  
  

  The affiliate will try to market to the consumer on whatever channel they see fit, whether that’s a social network, digital billboards or through a search engine using content marketing on a blog.

  
  

Have quesitons about managing your affiliates on Dovetale? Feel free to contact support@dovetale.com any time.