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The online business markets main growth area is the affiliate marketing model. This business rewards the internet marketer for every successful introduction of a new member or customer as well as pays a commission for somebody just to click a link to visit a site.

The online affiliate marketing process is all about sending relevant visitors to a pre-determined site. This does not necessarily require that the visitor has to start off on the affiliate marketer’s site. There are some affiliate marketers making a good living without having set up their own blog or website.

There is much innovative thinking happening in this space and as this business model develops and matures there will be more ways available for the internet marketer to make a living, even by setting up their own new ways of doing business.

Most affiliate marketers tend to use the more traditional marketing methods to persuade people to buy a product or sign up for a service. One of these, similar to what is found in the offline world, is straight forward advertising.

If a business in the ‘real’ world wants to attract customers they will place adverts in a publication that reaches their market. If you are selling a general consumer good such as canned beans you would advertise in a publication that reaches a large base of consumers. The newspapers tend to offer effective solutions for this type of advertising.

If you have a more targetted product such as disposable nappies then you would advertise in magazines serving the market of new parents and babies. Or you would only advertise fertiliser in gardening or farming magazines or radio and TV stations with programs directed to this market.

Advertising on the internet works exactly the same way. If you are an affiliate marketer for a baby product, you would buy Google Adwords that would place your ads on blogs and sites that discuss parenting and baby issues. It’s automated by Google so it is really easy to do.

On the other hand if you are selling a product that appeals to all, you might want to place your adverts on specific sites such as newspaper sites. These tend to be very expensive and totally out of reach for bloggers.

An example of this is the advertising of mobile phone services that you will see on sites such as The Independent or IBM advertising on The New York Times. These adverts are bought direct by the advertiser and generally are referred to as display advertising or banner ads.

Another traditional way of advertising is search engine optimisation. This is where certain keywords that describe the business are promoted for internet visitors to find. This is similar to the concept of the printed yellow pages where one would look up a keyword such as motor repairs or window washer to find a business who would have paid for the space.

Much of the affiliate marketers focus would be on using direct marketing principles. Just as everybody with a letterbox in the garden receives a multitude of advertising pamphlets and letters with brochures and product information, most not requested, the online marketer also sends out information directed at a list of prospects.

Affiliate marketers have many traditional marketing techniques available to them to make use of. Making the most of them will be critical to their success.