What is your target audience? What if you could reach them at any time and anywhere? How about making money at any time, even while sleeping?
The online space provides the world’s endless possibilities of visibility which vastly increases marketing chances and sales as well.
This advance in technology provides access to your brands and multiple ways of communicating with your customers (with us all being a customer we understand the importance of communication).
Let’s have a small look at definitions, similarities, and differences.
Definition
Affiliate Marketing
This type of online marketing involves third-party personnel, where the retailer pays a stipend or commission to another for marketing their product. This brings additional traffic to the website of the retailer and the advertiser or marketer is paid upon customer purchase.
Just in case you were wondering affiliate marketing is indeed considered to be digital marketing.
Digital Advertising
Wearing multiple hats such as website marketing, online marketing, and internet marketing just to name a few, digital advertising uses the world wide web as its playground, where marketing is done using various channels such as social media, websites, and other streaming sources. Just to name a few platforms they are:
- Website
- Text Marketing
Benefits
Both marketing styles do help with online visibility and can have a positive impact on conversion rates. Let’s talk benefits of either of these marketing strategies.
Affiliate marketing benefits
- Helps when targeting specific customers
- Cost-effective
- Helps to increase brand awareness and visibility
- The marketer is paid based on conversion hence, making this performance-based
- Performance is visible per advertising
- Widen the audience through affiliates
Digital advertising benefits
- Increase in brand awareness
- Ability to reach a wide market
- You define your audience
- Budget-friendly
- Time and cost-effective
Differences
While affiliate marketing is one aspect of digital advertising, they definitely have differences.
| Affiliate Marketing | Digital Advertising |
| This is an arrangement between two parties where another person is paid by the advertiser. | This is a bit wider than affiliate marketing where once a user has a smart device interaction with customers is easy. |
| The advertiser pays affiliates for sale conversions | All online mediums include display ads, social media, and customer interactions. |
| The pre-determined commission is in for sale | Communication or marketing type also includes email marketing. |
Similarities
By now we have seen that both affiliate marketing and digital advertising operate in the same space but with different agents and performers.
They however have one common similarity and that is they both operate in the same space which is on digital platforms.
Component of Affiliate Marketing
We can rest assured that without these components of affiliate marketing it would not mean as much as it is in the current time. Here is a brief introduction to these components:
- Owner of product/merchant: As stated the merchant is the owner of the product or service that is for sale, can range from a individual to a company.
- The affiliates: Quick pointer; an affiliate can also be the product or service owner/merchant. The affiliate is the marketer/promoter and again can be a company or an individual.
Always remember an affiliate is not paid per impression but per conversion meaning sale of product or service that is being marketed.
- The customer: In all marketing types the customers are the same, that end user that aid in the ranking of your site and more so uses the product the merchant offer.
We all fall in this category, the customer.
Component of Digital Advertising
It is a fact that if either of these components is used on their own you will get impeccable results but, with the correct portion used online for your product, service, or company the outcome will be immeasurable.
- Search engine optimization (SEO): This is the foundation of all digital advertising/marketing. It has been said multiple times that search engine optimization is the baseline or foundation of all strategies to boost online awareness.
- Pay-per-click (PPC): In this you implement the strategy of staying relevant. This is to say that you maintain your online presence in search results while also your SEO ranking is being established with organic rankings in this traffic.
- Web design: When the conversation takes place most will think first of website and with the correct design strategy and added marketing component you will be able to generate adequate leads.
- Content marketing: Having quality content most of all educates your potential (or existing) customers about who you are and what you are about will increase leads and the end goal increase revenue.
- Email marketing: This type is more direct marketing, this means an audience was already discovered and target promotions are sent out to these groups of customers or potential customers.
- Social media marketing: With the multiple platforms that are available social media marketing holds its place as a key player in digital advertising. The modern day platforms also provides a paying options with varied conditions, some platforms are:
- Youtube
- TikTok
- Marketing/web analytics: This allows you or the personnel in charge to track your performance. In the results of these tracking are able to see all marketing trends and give g all you need to see what changes or adjustments are needed. This will ensure your relevance and ensure your continuous revenue.
Conclusion
Let us review what was said in this article.
Both styles of marketing uses the online space and whole aim is to enhance business and its revenue. Both works best with practicing good SEO and other operations using digital marketing styles.
So, affiliate marketing strategy aims at revenue as the advertiser earns once the user or customer completes a conversion. While digital advertising uses all online avenues and correct portions of the components increasing organic traffic. Both styles contributes to brand awareness.