Q: I know absolutely nothing about affiliate marketing, but am wondering if it’s something that will earn me money on my website. Is there an explanation of what affiliate marketing is?
A: I recently began trying to define all areas of affiliate marketing with a new resource, Affilipedia. The Affilipedia is an open resource for the affiliate marketing community.
It’s a wiki where anybody can contribute their articles and other information on affiliate marketing there. Also, anybody can add on to existing definitions, articles, etc.
Here is my definition of affiliate marketing, as posted to Affilipedia:
Affiliate Marketing is a performance based marketing channel on the Internet where a merchant pays a commission to an affiliate for generating clicks, leads, or sales from a graphic or text link located on the affiliate’s site.
For example, if a pregnant woman was looking for books on pregnancy, she might come across the review at BabyLounge.com for The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy.
If that pregnant woman clicks through on the title of the book in the review, she is taken to Amazon.com via an affiliate link. If she purchases the book, BabyLounge.com earns a commission on the sale.
If anybody has anything they’d like to add to that, create a login and share your thoughts.
You can use the search on the Affilipedia site to find definitions of other terms. If there’s nothing showing for a term you’d like defined, let me know and I’ll add it in.