Is Google AdSense Considered True Affiliate Marketing?

Let's start by defining affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a method of advertising, selling and marketing products on the Internet using an affiliate program. An affiliate is a webmaster who joins a merchant in his or her efforts to sell products or services. This revenue sharing marketing method is a highly efficient and cost-effective way to increase awareness about a particular website and its products and/or services and improve sales generated by the same website, products and/or services.

The affiliate webmaster is often referred to as the "publisher" since this person displays or publishes links or advertisements. This can be done via websites, blogs, emails, RSS feeds or any other means that the merchant finds acceptable. These links or ads provide exposure for the merchant and take the visitors to the merchant's website or to a particular product page when the visitors click on them. The affiliate benefits from this arrangement by receiving a commission or revenue sharing for every sale made through his or her website.

There is also another type of revenue sharing marketing that works on a pay-per-click system where the affiliate gets paid every time a visitor clicks on these links or ads. This is however not the preferred system. Merchants mostly opt for the cost-per-sale or cost per action programs that allow the affiliate to receive remuneration when sales or subscriptions occur by visitors leaving the affiliate site and going to the merchant's site.

Revenue sharing began four years after the birth of the world wide web (www) in late 1994 and many popular and successful e-commerce businesses such as Amazon.com owe a large part of their success to this marketing methods. You should be aware that affiliate marketing is different from multi-level marketing (MLM), although MLM or network marketing companies use methods similar to online affiliate marketing. In addition, Google AdSense is not considered affiliate marketing although it bears resemblance to it. The main difference between Google Adsense and affiliate marketing is that Adsense uses contextual advertising.

Tip: Visit Daniel's blog and learn how to make money as an affiliate marketer using CPA Marketing plus you can download his Free report: "Don't Make The Same Mistakes That 98% Of Other CPA Affiliates Make!"

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