What is Affiliate Marketing? Benefits of the Affiliate Marketing • The main advantage of having an affiliate program is that it is entirely performance-based. Because affiliates are only paid a commission once the desired action has taken place, they’re more motivated to drive the conversion you’re looking for. This mitigates any efforts that drive traffic with little to no value to your company while also ensuring that you get what you pay for. • Affiliates can be found in every market and product category that exists today. Whether you’re looking to break into the retail industry or for something more niche like handcrafted vintage toys, there will always be relevant websites to align with. The great news is that many of these affiliates will already have an established visitor base. • Merchants gain a wider place to sell their products and services, resulting in more customers and more sales. • Programs that track compile statistics from affiliate sites provide reliable and current client behavior on trends and demands at no extra cost. • The affiliate does not have to worry about customer support, book keeping, and e-commerce related headaches since in affiliate marketing, the merchant handles it all; all the affiliate needs to do is promote and resell the product. • An affiliate marketer can still maintain his present work or business and have the affiliate marketing income to supplement his financial position. With a laptop and an internet connection, anybody can work almost anywhere even while enjoying a vacation. • For many of the reasons listed above, affiliate marketing can be extremely cost effective. If you’re only paying commissions when the desired conversion occurs, you’re not throwing away ad dollars on placements that have no proven value.