Affiliate Marketing Software Declassified

Affiliate marketing has grown by leap and bounds in the past few years and has proven to be an effective way of generating profits for online merchants by using the concept of revenue sharing between the merchants and their associates or affiliates as they are commonly known as. The reason for this popularity in such a short time has been because of the cost effective nature of this marketing scheme. The merchant would only pay if the affiliate was able to get the user to commit to a transaction or make a minimum amount of traffic go to a particular website.

However with the increase in technology and ever changing demands affiliate marketing became too much for a single person to handle. So the merchants decided to shift affiliate marketing to third party vendors which were a specialized group of network affiliate managers and network programmers. Their sole aim was to increase the profits for merchants and affiliates. But these specialized services also caused a significant chink in the profits of the merchants.

This led to the concept of affiliate marketing software. Since affiliate marketing was a proven technology, a need was felt to cut out the middle men in these transactions. The affiliate marketing software essentially replaces the third party vendor. It allows the affiliates to promote the products and services of the merchants on their web site using text links, banners, e-mails and sometimes even flash advertisements.

Besides performing the all important task of promotion the affiliate marketing software also counts the number of visitors to a particular merchant link, the total amount of sales registered at the merchant end and the commission and money payable to different affiliates for bringing in customers. Since it is software, the results are always a 100% correct and unbiased.

The major benefit of using affiliate marketing software over a third party vendor is the fact that they are not barred by regional hindrance or language barriers. The same software can be used to customize the layout and language options on the web page based on the region of request. This leads to significant cost cutting and increased visibility across the cyber town which means only one thing; more and more profits for merchant as well as affiliates.

There is also an inherent capability in most of the affiliate marketing software. They allow the merchants to create multi-currency networks. So the merchants do not have to pay conversion fees again and again. In fact they are great for merchants who are targeting local markets which do not deal in USD, EURO or GBP.

Installation cost of affiliate marketing software can vary from few hundred dollars to a few thousand. It all depends upon the features you inculcate in the software. Just be very cautious of one thing. Whichever software you go for make sure the company provides ample technical support for the first year at least. Affiliate marketing software are fast becoming an essential part of web marketing and if you plan to make good money on the web make sure your web site uses one.