Bad Economy Not Touching Affiliate Marketing

It’s still a material world, despite the recession, which makes affiliate marketing the one bright spot in the global recession. The fact is, even though people are spending less, they still need to buy products. But instead of getting in their car and wasting gas as they drive to the mall to pay top dollar for an item, they are going online and looking for bargains. And what do all those shoppers do? They surf the web for good deals. They go on websites. They click, click, click. And that’s why affiliate marketing is still such a lucrative business.

What does affiliate marketing involve? Affiliate marketing is when a company places an advertisement for goods on an unrelated site in hopes that someone visiting that site will click on the ad and buy their product. For example, a skateboard company might advertise on a site that focuses on the best skateboard parks in the country. The owner of the site gets a commission every time a visitor to his site buys a skateboard after clicking on the ad. Sometimes the site owner gets a small commission just for that click, even if the person doesn’t eventually buy the skateboard.

Recent studies have shown that more than half of adult Americans online have used the Internet to do some form of online shopping. And those numbers are expected to increase. Big companies love affiliate marketing because it’s far cheaper than standard advertising on television, print or radio. The companies only pay for the ad when they know it’s working, they can easily find a target audience, and they have almost unlimited numbers of a captive audience. Because more and more people are doing their shopping online, especially in these tough times.

Affiliate marketing is at the center of a perfect storm of economic factors that are driving much of the rest of the economy down, but making it nearly recession proof. And people are starting to notice. The internet is becoming inundated by more and more affiliate programs, many of which involve multi-level marketing. Done right, you can make decent money with affiliate marketing. The key is to drive traffic to your website so that people can buy your product.

In multi-level marketing, you not only get a commission when you sell a product, you also get a commission when someone else signs up to sell a product---and a commission when your recruits sell the product. Some of the top affiliate programs are those that are tied to specific subjects, such as electronics, lifestyle, telecommunications and others. As in any business, do your homework and read up on the affiliate programs that are out there. Even though the investment can be small, the idea is to make money, not simply throw up a website. Be ready to do some major marketing, because ultimately, if you can’t sell your website, no one is going to visit it, and those clicks you rely on to bring in money just aren’t going to happen by themselves.