Growth of the Internet
– Affiliate Programs BOOM
Because Of A Convergence Of Three Factors
By Lori Wilkerson
The growth of the Internet has
had the single greatest impact on the way business is done in the last twenty
years. With just the click of a mouse of the stroke of a keypad, money is wired,
credit cards are charged and millions of dollars of purchases are recorded
around the globe hourly every single day. Today’s consumer confidence in online
shopping has reached record proportions, and most consumers do it without a
second thought. Because online shopping is now so popular, affiliate marketing
has become a booming success.
In the early
years of the Internet, consumers had an interesting approach to
shopping – they loved to browse through the colourful pages of
Net malls, looking endlessly at the offerings, but when t came
time to buy, they weren’t so sure they could trust their credit
card information to a computer. Instead, they’d call and place
the order via telephone while they sat in front of their PC
staring at the very item they wanted. For online vendors, it was
frustrating.
As online
vendors began offering more sophisticated security measures,
online sales began to increase. Secured Servers that scrambled
credit and personal information made entering credit card
information less risky and consumers responded. Soon, the
convenience and the ability to shop online whenever and wherever
were convenient for the won out and online shopping became big
business.
Clearly stated
privacy policies and the option to opt out of any mailing lists
also increased consumer confidence. Add to the that merchants
who offered the option to not store your credit card information
for future purchases and you soon had consumers who felt there
really wasn’t a down side to online purchasing.
Merchants soon
saw that not only were consumers using the Internet with
increasing regularity, but more and more consumers were becoming
multi-PC families. With so many families wired, it only made
sense to direct marketing efforts to this incredible growth
market. After all, the high cost of advertising on television
and radio and in magazines was becoming outrageous, and the
results were difficult to gauge.
Affiliate Programs Vs.
Traditional Advertising
Internet
affiliate programs have become the answer for many merchants –
with so many customers now relying on Net shopping for regular
purchases, the Internet provides an enormous growth potential;
it’s growing every year, and it provides the chance to target
specific audiences through affiliate websites.
Today’s online
merchants look at affiliate or
pay-on-performance marketing compared to the investment in
advertising dollars and realize that it’s simply good business
to establish strong Internet marketing partnerships. There are
plenty of people who want to start a home based business (see
our article on this subject here) who can start an affiliate
site and both parties earn money. The pros and cons make it
apparent that the Internet means Affiliate marketing is here to
stay and grow. Why?
-
The
Internet grows larger every year – this means a larger
potential customer base every year.
-
There are
no hidden advertising costs for affiliate marketers or
merchants with affiliate programs. It’s a “You scratch my
back, I’ll scratch yours,” arrangement. The overhead is
virtually non-existent, meaning more profits for everyone.
-
Every year,
security features and the corresponding levels of consumer
confidence, increase so that more and more people shop
online. The trend has continued to rise and is predicted to
keep on increasing well into 2012.
Affiliate
programs have benefited from the Net in a number of ways and
will continue to do so in the foreseeable future – as will the
merchants associated with them.
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About The
Author
Lori Wilkerson
is a full-time freelance writer who loves her work because it
gives her the opportunity to learn more about the world every
day. Right now, she knows a little bit about almost everything,
and a bunch
about
starting a homebased business using affiliate programs and a
computer.
She has two dogs who are spoiled and one teenager who is not.
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