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The Affiliate Marketing Ecosystem

These numbers and trends demonstrate that affiliate marketing will continue to prosper in the 2020s and beyond.

The concept of affiliate marketing has been around for a long time, but interest does not stop and so affiliate marketing rose to prominence. According to 99 firms, 81% of marketers and 84% of publishers leverage the power of affiliate marketing already.  And the interest does not stop there. Based on Google Trend data, the search interest in the query “affiliate marketing” has increased up over 200% between 2015 and 2020. According to Statista, business spending on affiliate marketing will hit $8.2 billion in the U.S by 2022.

Affiliate Marketing

Basically, affiliate marketing is a partnership between a brand (the advertiser) and an affiliate. Due to its performance-based approachaffiliate marketing is a lucrative marketing stream and beneficial for both brands and affiliates, as it pushes the boundaries of traditional marketing, offering a new, convenient, and cost-effective route. To discover more about affiliate marketing and how you can get started read our guide. 

The different roles in affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing works by distributing the responsibilities for product marketing and creation among several parties.  

The Affiliate 

The publisher will promote a brand’s products or services on their site.

The Consumer  

Consumers are the drivers of affiliate marketing. Affiliates promote products and services, convincing consumers to buy a product through their link. Once they have bought the product, the seller and the affiliate share the profits.

The Advertiser 

The Advertiser can be a solo entrepreneur or large enterprise, a retailer or someone else. The advertiser wants to promote his product to the market.

The Program/Network 

An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between the merchants and their affiliates. They manage relationships, provide third-party checks, and pay commissions to the affiliate (based on the rules set by the brand).

How affiliate marketers get paid

The affiliate’s contribution will mostly depend on the affiliate program. The three major types are PPS, PPL and PPC.

  1. Pay per Sale (PPS): Companies pay a percentage of all qualified sales.
  2. Pay per Lead (PPL): Companies pay a fixed commission for every qualified action a click generated.
  3. Pay per Click (PPC): An affiliate gets paid for all the valid clicks generated regardless of whether these clicks resulted in sales or leads.

How to get started?

You can either choose a program or network to join. If you are unsure about what fits your business best, our guide will be able to help you answer the most important questions. Feel free to reach out to our team of experts for more information on how to get started with Grow.

Federico Bonavita
Digital Marketing Manager

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