What I learned Wednesday: Affliate Programs

See previous What I learned Wednesday posts here.

Today's topic:  Affliate Programs

What is an affiliate program?  I'm so glad you asked.  An affiliate program is basically advertising for someone else, or for some company, then getting paid if someone acts on that advertisement.  As a blogger, I am a publisher (just found that out today. Hee, hee, hee, I like the sounds of that).  Advertisers want blogger/publishers to help spread the word about their product or service.  So they "hire" the blogger of sorts to try out and promote the product.  Or they borrow space on the blogger's site to display their banner, then pay the blogger every time someone clicks on that banner, or signs up for a service through the ad.

How do I become an affiliate?  You join an affiliate program or an affiliate network.  You can look up individual companies or products online to see if they have an affiliate program (Google the product/company with the word "affiliate" or "referral").  Or to make life easier, and, really, who doesn't want to make life easier, you can join an affiliate network.  Advertisers want to make their life easier too, so instead of forming their own affiliate program, they will use a third party site, the affiliate network, to find the bloggers for them.  They sign up their product/service as a campaign and members of the site apply for the campaigns that interest them.  As a blogger, an affiliate network gives me lots of companies with lots of campaigns to choose from.  So it benefits both the publisher (me) and the advertiser.

How do I find affiliate networks to use? Just like last week's post, this is a lot to absorb for me and I'm still doing research on which affiliate networks are best.  So, instead of going on to a new topic next week, I'm going to check out some different affiliate networks and I'm going to tell you which ones I've decided to join.  In the meantime, you can do some research too.  There were some great posts written on affiliate networks that I have been reading lately.  They include lists of different networks to join.  Please read these lovely ladies posts and check out the networks they recommend.  Then you can be ready next week to tell me what you've learned.

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