Affiliate marketing is an online advertising channel in which advertisers (be they online merchants, direct marketing companies, or large corporate) pay publishers (independent parties that promote the products or services of an advertiser on their Web site) only for results, rather than an audience or ‘reach’.

This could be a defined as:

• A sale (Cost Per Sale or CPS) – simply the sale of a product
• A Lead (CPL) eg someone submitting their name and contact details
• An Acquisition (CPA) eg a completed credit card application
• A Click (CPC) where an advertiser is paying for a guaranteed, qualified click

This “pay-for-performance” model has, not surprisingly, seen huge growth over the last two years.

Affiliate marketing is a low-risk, high-reward advertising model, but as with anything it is all about getting the little things right, and the following are key elements in the performance marketing mix:

• The Offer
• Product Pricing
• % commission or flat lead, acquisition or click price
• Creative with a strong call-to-action
• A good landing page strategy

Advertisers in our network, give us ads to put into our network, making them available for placement by publishers. Each campaign is assigned a commission, such as a fixed amount per lead or a percentage of a resulting sale on the advertiser’s Web site. Publishers looking to monetize their traffic apply to join an advertiser’s program.

Once accepted, the publishers select and place the advertiser’s links, banners, buttons, on their Web sites, or in their email campaigns (eDMs).

When a consumer clicks on a publisher’s link, a cookie is set on the visitor’s browser that identifies the advertiser, the publisher, and the specific link and payment rates. Once an action is completed, be it an actual purchase or filling out a form, that transaction is tracked and recorded by the Commission Monster tracking system (CM2). Upon recording the transaction,CM2 handles all of the collections and payment both for the publisher and advertiser.