Internet Business Model

Affiliate Programmes

So what is an affiliate programme or business? Wikipedia defines it as follows:

Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.

That is what it is in a nutshell. As an affiliate marketer you get paid a commission for every customer that you refer to your partner or merchant site. So you get rewarded for promoting the merchant’s business.

Some merchants will pay for each person you refer, whether or not they actually buy something from the merchant site. This is paying for clicks or registrations. But most commonly they will pay a commission for every purchase that that the referred person makes.

These payments vary according to the affiliate programme and can be anything from single digit percentages to 80% for e-goods, which cost very little to sell. The potential rewards are therefore huge as can be seen from the case-study below:

"This affiliate marketing case study describes how a novice working part-time used Site Build It! to create an affiliate web site that achieved $49,000 in sales in just over a year. His second site has now achieved more than $308,000 in sales for one merchant. We earn a commission on that. He spends nothing on advertising."
Allan Gardyne
Rupert's SBI! Experiment

One thing that you will need if you decide to take on this internet business model is some form of internet presence. This can be in the form of a blog or a website.

There are pros and cons to each one and you may wish to find out more about the differences between blogging and having your own website.

Advantages of affiliate marketing

The advantages of having an affiliate marketing business are that:
1. You do not process any actual purchases – the merchant does that
2. You do not handle or ship any physical goods – the merchant does that
3. You do not need to store any goods yourself
4. You do not need to have your own product to sell
5. You don not have to worry about customer support and such matters
6. The costs of operating such an internet business model are relatively low
7. You get rewarded for your performance – the more sales, clicks or registrations you get the higher your commissions
8. If you already have a website it is a great way to get additional income off it

Affiliate marketing is a profitable online business model

There is a lot than can be said about affiliate programmes, but I would not do it justice here. Fortunately for me and for you someone went to all the trouble to break it down for us in what is undoubtedly the best information on what affiliate marketing is and how you can benefit from it.

Click here to start reading your free Affiliate Masters Course today.
What excites me in particular about this online business model is that it eliminates geographic boundaries. In Africa, that is a huge thing. Imagine being able to be an affiliate in Africa promoting and referring people to businesses in the US or the UK or all over the world for that matter. Well, that is exactly what I do every day.

There are no borders with the internet. You can be here in Africa and, with the affiliate marketing internet business model, get commissions off companies all over the world. That is the huge potential the internet has for Africa and the sooner Africans realise that and take advantage of it the better for their economies, individually and as nations.