Affiliate Network in Shining India

Good commissions, advanced tracking, multi-tier programs, earn money at home…blah, blah, blah. Sometimes you get so much irritated by these messages that you want to shut down your PC or sue their architects for reasons which even you are not clear about.

Anyways, I want to tell you guys about the buzz called affiliate marketing and the networks in India. I have been an active Internet user for more than eight years now and I know the gimmicks and filthy tricks some technical geeks play on the Internet.

Affiliate marketing is the extensions of online marketing. You must have seen some spasm and promotional mails in your mail boxes. They come under e-mail marketing and are intended to promote and sell the products. Similarly, people use links supported with eye-catching advertisements and creative punch lines to sell the products of dealers on their web sites. It is called affiliate marketing.

The worst case scenario for an average user or people who are not aware of the webmasters lingo is confrontation with terms like two-tier programs, the performance model, cookies and sales tracking, etc.

An Internet user has little to do with all these things unless you are interested in quitting your job and try your hand in affiliate business. It surely works, but without a good web site it is like making a search engine to bring down the Google.

I have found several affiliate networks providing services in India. I guess they are based in India and belong to the fraternity of webmasters who have learned to adapt with times.

Having said all that, you must not conclude that it is just like any other mail forwarding exercise. Affiliate marketing can be a serious business if you know how to sell products to masses on the Internet. It involves creative thinking, the writing efficiency and skills of a salesperson.

Affiliate Marketing – Playing Fair

Appearances can be deceptive and more in case of the virtual world. In many discussion forms I have read comments about webmasters being duped by merchants and networks.

Affiliate marketing can be a promising job for you and generate the money from your web site. For that you must be sure to join hands with the right merchant or network.

Before signing up with a network, try to have a discussion with someone onboard. Affiliate networks and service providers do provide their contact numbers and e-mail address. If you have a query, it is better to send it before joining. If there are doubts try to communicate with the authorities.

An affiliate program puts nicely the figures and the presentation catches the webmaster attention straightaway. However, it is helpful to be little skeptical and enquire more about the details of the services.

Networks are more reliable than merchants. That of course is an opinion, rather a personal experience. A few days ago I heard about an affiliate being duped by the merchant claiming more reversal rates. That is one thing a webmaster can do nothing about. Reversal rate is the money deducted by canceling the affiliate leads on the pretext that the customer returned the product.

However, it would be wrong to say that it is always the merchant who cheats. Some affiliates have also been engaged in unethical practices like click frauds and giving misleading information. Because of these nuisances or unscrupulous acts, a lot of web site owners have to suffer.

Advanced tracking solutions may prove as good resources to counter the false practices in the industry. After all we are all into this business and we must play fair. Unless we do something about it today, we won’t be any better than hackers or software piracy agents tomorrow.

Retailers Jump on the Affiliate Network Bandwagon

Numbers can be very confusing if not put across properly. But the same numbers start making sense if they are presented in a clear and concise manner. Recently E-consultancy carried out a research which was sponsored by Buy.at, the UK's largest independent affiliate network. They projected a lot of numbers which will help the affiliate marketing network to gain a lot.

The main aim of the survey was to comprehend how brands (merchants) use affiliate marketing. And the results show that 95 per cent of marketers using the channel consider it to be 'very' or 'quite' cost effective. On top of that, retailers are spending 19 per cent of their online marketing budget on it. 71 per cent of retailers are expected to increase investment in affiliate marketing over the next two years.

The survey projects a trend according to which 62 per cent of retailers are investing their budget in affiliate marketing than they did two years ago. 27 per cent of these retailers have increased their affiliate network marketing budget by a quarter, a further 10 per cent have increased it by up by half and other 20 per cent have doubled their spending.

The survey also throws light on some major barriers to the success of affiliate network marketing in the retail industry. 60 per cent of retailers are of the opinion that 'a poorly converting website' as a 'major' or 'minor' barrier that prevents their organisation from achieving success with this form of promotion. Once past this barrier, there is no limit to the success one can achieve with Affiliate Marketing. As a result, affiliate network marketing is presently at a high and the retailers are taking full advantage of it.