What does an affiliate marketer actually do?

We all are salespersons to one extent or another. We sell ourselves to a prospective boss when we are interviewing for a job. We are selling a lifestyle and ourselves to our intended spouse. Whenever we are trying to convince someone to do something or buy something from us or for us, we are being a salesperson. Today with the information highway at our fingertips whenever you hear mention of a person doing Affiliate Marketing, they are most likely promoting a Website, product or service on line.

There are two ways that someone who is an Affiliate Marketer may be compensated or paid. The first way is being paid every time they are successful at getting someone to click on a banner or text link, this way of being paid is called: pay-per-click. The second way that an Affiliate Marketer may be compensated for their efforts is when a merchant pays them every time they bring a customer to their site and that customer make a purchase.

The merchant pays the affiliate a commission for each sale they bring the merchant. Other ways of being compensated are: Pay-per-impression, Pay-Per-Lead, and Pay-Per-Call. What exactly does an affiliate do in order to be successful at earning compensation?

There are many tasks that affiliates must do daily if they are to be successful in this field. They must keep abreast of new changes in affiliate marketing strategies, new products and they must be aware of how well their network marketing efforts for the products and services they are promoting are doing on a daily basis. If their promotion efforts are succeeding, they will want to continue them, if they are failing, then changes will need to be made in how they are marketing.

If a marketer is promoting by use of his own Website, then that site needs to be constantly updated with content, with promotional links and banners, and with tools that will help bring visitors to the site. Site maintenance is very important to the marketer who is using a Website to market products or services. A marketer has to stay visible to be successful and they stay visible by means of updating and putting out new ads, banners, links, buttons, and other promotional materials like articles and testimonials.

Blogging has become a relatively new popular way of attracting visitors to read about products or services. Many Network Marketers who are affiliates are taking full advantage of the popularity of blogs to use them to promote their products and services. There are Blog Directories to list your blog in, so that visitors can find your blog. Affiliates can find these directories by searching a good search engine like Google using the words "blog directory".

The merchant who uses affiliates to sell products and services need to be aware of the industry and what new tools they can offer their affiliates that will assist them in promoting the products or services. They must be aware of the best ways to set up the affiliate programs so that the affiliates who join will be able to have the tools they need to bring paying visitors to the merchant.

The merchant and the affiliate who promote for the merchant need to work together towards achieving sales success. When affiliate marketing supports the sale of products and services all involved are winners; the merchant sells his products and or services making a profit, the affiliate is compensated for his promotional efforts and the consumer is able to locate and purchase needs goods and services.