Affiliate partner

Noun

[ah-fill-ee-it pro-gram]

An affiliate program is an organized system that enables affiliate partners to drive traffic to your properties through tracked links and earn a cut when that traffic converts. Affiliates come in many different forms and they can include influencers, content creators, publications, membership associations, and technology vendors.

In an affiliate program, an online merchant pays affiliates to send them traffic. There is a payout to the affiliate for that traffic, and then if the traffic buys the product, the affiliate receives a commission. An affiliate program is a cost-effective marketing strategy that works for both B2B and B2C brands.

Example: Lisa runs a popular software blog. Loop, a software brand, pays Lisa to place an affiliate link on her blog. When someone buys Loop's software through the link, Lisa gets a payout. Yay!

Noun

[ah-fill-ee-it mar-ket-ing]

Affiliate marketing is an advertising model in which a brand pays third-party content creators to generate traffic and leads for the brand's products or services. Content creators often run a blog or produce video content. They promote the company in their content and are given a unique link to drive their audience to. Then, they are paid a commission for the value of the traffic driven to that link or sales made through it.

Affiliate marketing is a useful tool for businesses who want to reach a wider, established audience through a creator the audience is already familiar with. Affiliate marketing is a billion-dollar industry, and it operates in both B2C and B2B spaces. Return on investment for affiliate marketing can be very high since the company essentially outsources marketing and selling to the affiliate.

Example: Gretchen posted links to a specific software in her blog. For every click that link got, the software company paid her a commission. Gretchen was taking part in affiliate marketing.