Introduction to Affiliate Marketing

Here at Fortifi, we help publishers and advertisers everyday run their affiliate marketing campaigns and we often forget that quite a few people still have no idea what affiliate marketing is.

We are running a series of posts over the next few weeks to help you get the grasps with affiliate marketing and understand how you could be utilising it in your business.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process through which an affiliate receives commission from an advertiser by promoting a product or service to potential customers, that then results in a sale.

First off, let's break down some of those terms:

Advertiser: This is the brand / merchant who sells their products through the affiliate marketing model

Affiliate (also known as a Publisher): This is the website or app that promotes the advertisers products or services

Below shows the basic process of the affiliate marketing model:



This outlines the basic process between the affiliate and the advertiser, but there are other processes that go on behind the scene which we will go into more depth over the coming weeks.

When an affiliate starts promoting another companies products/services, they are given an affiliate link. This is a link that includes a unique tracking code so the advertiser can match the affiliate with the sale. This link is normally provided by an affiliate software that offers tracking, reporting and payment solutions.

Examples of successful affiliate marketers


It started as a one-man project by Martin Lewis and is now of the biggest personal finance sites in the UK and across the world. Readers go to this site to get advice and reviews on the latest financial products and services. 


What started as small affiliate site helping its users find cheap flights, they now make money from their commissions from airlines, hotels and travel partners. 


PC Magazine have become so trusted in their industry that they can make a lot of revenue in commissions from the likes of Dell and Lenovo by reviewing and listing their computers and laptops. 

Benefits of the affiliate marketing model

A study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau found that in 2017, brands spent £554 million on affiliate marketing, and in return, this generated £8.9 billion for advertisers. You can see why so many brands are setting up their own affiliate marketing programmes.

Affiliate marketing is also known as being the most cost-effective form of advertising a brand can invest into. Unlike other avenues of advertising such as PPC, a brand only pays an affiliate when a sale occurs. So unless you get money from the sale, you don't pay anything.

Another benefit of this model is that an affiliate essentially become an extension of your existing sales team. These affiliates have access to an audience that you wouldn't necessarily be able to get the attention of. Good affiliates have set up a trusted community of engaged individuals who look for guidance and advice on what to purchase.


This post just touches the surface of affiliate marketing and in the coming weeks, we will be discussing how your business could utilise affiliate marketing in your industry.

To ensure you don't miss out on future posts around affiliate marketing and other related topics, follow us on Twitter @fortificloud, like us on Facebook @fortifcloud or follow us on LinkedIn @Fortifi.


About Us: 

Fortifi Marketing helps businesses optimise their performance marketing results in real-time. Create and track your affiliate links, pay and communicate with your affiliates and gain valuable insights into your campaigns across the entire customer journey. 

Streamline your business and take unprecedented control over your sales, marketing, billing and support, allowing you more time to focus on the more important things. Build stronger relationships, create better customer experiences and work together as one team with Fortifi.




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