Skip to main content
  • Toolset
  • Solutions
  • About DMS
  • Case Studies
  • Contact Us

Connect With Your Audience At Scale

    • Acquire New Customers
    • Generate More Inquiries
    • Grow My Email Database
    • Grow My Website Traffic
    • Monetize My Audience
    • Re-Engage Consumers
    • Contact DMS
    • See The DMS Live Schedule
    • Be Inspired
    • How To / Best Practices
    • What Is...?
    • DMS Reports & More
    • Contact DMS
    • As Seen In...
    • Press Releases
    • Contact DMS
    • Enjoying The Journey
    • Work/Life Harmony
    • DMS Team
    • Contact DMS
    • Events
    • DMS Case Studies
    • Careers @ DMS
    • DMS Toolset
    • DMS Solutions
    • DMS Overview
    • DMS Investor Info
    • Contact DMS

Recent Searches

    Share this Post

    • Share on facebook
    • Share on twitter
    • Share on linkedin
    • Share on email
    1. Home
    2. DMS Insights: Digital Advertising News
    3. What Is Affiliate Marketing?

    Fill form to unlock content

    Loading, please wait

    Error - something went wrong!

    Thank you!

    What Is Affiliate Marketing?

    Do you need more sales, but you only want to pay for results? Do you think affiliate marketing might be the answer, but you’re not sure how it works? Digital Media Solutions is here to help. In this article, we’ve answered five of the most-searched questions about affiliate marketing. Click on your question below to see the answer.

    1. What is an affiliate marketing program? 
    2. What types of affiliate marketing are there? 
    3. How do you pay for affiliate marketing? 
    4. What types of promotions do well in affiliate marketing?
    5. What’s the best way to launch an affiliate marketing campaign?

    What is an affiliate marketing program?

    1. What is an affiliate marketing program?

    Affiliate marketing programs are a type of performance marketing for which a publisher promotes a product or service and the advertiser pays the publisher a commission when an agreed upon action takes place, often a sale. This type of payment is called “cost per action” or CPA and is beneficial because advertisers pay only for actual results and not for the media expenses accrued to achieve those results. 

    2. What types of affiliate marketing are there?

    While affiliate marketing can be performed using any marketing channel, the primary types of cost-per-action media distribution happen across these digital channels:

    • Email and newsletters 
    • Paid search
    • Display advertising
    • Social media
    • Blogs and forums
    • Consumer reviews
    • Retargeting
    • Pay-per-view (PPV) and contextual advertising
    • Mobile marketing

    3. How do you pay for affiliate marketing?

    With cost-per-action (CPA) based affiliate marketing, advertisers make their campaigns available for placement through a network of digital publishers across online and mobile channels. But instead of paying upfront for media expenses, advertisers pay commissions to publishers for the actual conversions (or actions) they deliver. The conversion can be sales, completed lead forms, subscriptions, sign ups, downloads, video views or any other measurable consumer actions.

    What types of promotions do well in affiliate marketing?

    4. What types of promotions do well in affiliate marketing?

    Affiliate marketing can be effective at achieving measurable, performance-based marketing objectives, including consumer purchases, completed lead forms, member signups or trials, software or mobile app downloads, video views and site registrations. Exclusive, limited-time offer promotions can be successful with affiliate marketing because they give the consumer a reason to act now.

    Affiliate marketing advertisers come from a long list of industries, including education, travel, insurance, mobile, health and beauty, gaming, weight loss, finance and dating.

    5. What’s the best way to launch an affiliate marketing campaign?

    There are five steps required to launch an affiliate marketing campaign:

    1. Choose the desired action: Set the goal for your advertising campaign. The goal must be measurable and should be tied to your overall marketing or business objectives. Examples include: consumer purchase, completed lead form, member signup or trial membership, software or mobile app download, video view and site registration.
    2. Set the payout: Based on your business model and acceptable cost of acquisition (COA), your comfortable payout amount should be determined. The payout amount or cost per action (CPA) should be equal to the value you set for each conversion, and it should assure positive ROI for your campaign.
    3. Choose channels and set restrictions: Make sure you can specify the media channels for which you want your offer and/or brand placed. Set necessary restrictions, including non-permissible keywords.
    4. Distribute your campaign: Typically this is completed by an affiliate marketing network, like DMS Performance Ad Market. According to guidelines set, affiliate managers of the affiliate network push out your advertising to targeted publishers within their CPA affiliate marketing network.
    5. Track conversions: Affiliate marketing conversions are tracked with cookies and tracking pixels. Affiliate marketing networks reconcile tracking to determine the number of targeted actions achieved and calculate the payout amount. Affiliate marketing advertisers pay only for results.

    Acquire Customers Online. Pay Only For Results.

    The team at Digital Media Solutions (DMS) loves helping marketers drive performance-based marketing results with affiliate marketing campaigns.  Acting as a point of connection between leading advertisers and successful, high-quality publishers, DMS helps businesses grow by sourcing new quality customers through more channels than advertisers can reach on their own.  Contact DMS today to take your affiliate marketing to the next level.

    Contact DMS
    • Previous Article

      Why Joey Liner, Former DoublePositive Co-Founder & CEO, Became The New CRO For DMS

      Why Joey Liner, Former DoublePositive Co-Founder & CEO, Became The New CRO For DMS

      Joey Liner co-founded one of the most successful performance marketing companies in the business in the early 2000s and now he’s decided to join DMS as the company’s Chief Revenue Officer.

    • Next Article

      866 Million Pieces Of Facebook Content + 583 Fake Facebook Accounts Removed

      866 Million Pieces Of Facebook Content + 583 Fake Facebook Accounts Removed

      From fake accounts to hate speech and spam, Facebook is cracking down and sharing their results with their first-ever community standards enforcement report.

    Most Recent Articles

    • 4 Tips To Help Set Up Inbound Call Campaigns For Long-Term Success

      4 Tips To Help Set Up Inbound Call Campaigns For Long-Term Success

      Careful planning is needed both on the advertiser and publisher sides for a call campaign to perform well. These four tips can help you set up inbound call campaigns for long-term success.

      Read Article

    • 3 Top Lead Generation Best Practices To Scale Your Business

      3 Top Lead Generation Best Practices To Scale Your Business

      Set lead generation campaigns up for success by deploying best practices and optimizations.

      Read Article

    • What Is The Latest News On Apple And Push Notifications?
      10 months ago

      What Is The Latest News On Apple And Push Notifications?

      At this year’s annual WWDC, Apple announced that beginning in 2023, iOS 16 will support web push notifications.

      Read Article

    •  8 Email Subject Line Strategies That Can Help Drive Up Open Rates

      8 Email Subject Line Strategies That Can Help Drive Up Open Rates

      Subject lines represent a make-it or break-it opportunity to get email opened.

      Read Article

    • 4 Often Overlooked Ways To Address Email Inboxing Challenges

      4 Often Overlooked Ways To Address Email Inboxing Challenges

      While there are technical aspects to making sure an email message gets to its intended destination, it’s important to always keep the consumer top of mind.

      Read Article

    • 5 Ways To Manage Customer Acquisition Challenges

      5 Ways To Manage Customer Acquisition Challenges

      Customer acquisition challenges are universal, but finding the right solutions shouldn’t be hard. Here’s a look at 5 ways to overcome your customer acquisition challenges & drive the results you need.

      Read Article

    • What Is Happening With The Twitter Purchase?
      11 months ago

      What Is Happening With The Twitter Purchase?

      Elon Musk is taking over Twitter. Now what? Here’s what you need to know about the sale of Twitter and how you can proceed confidently on the social media platform.

      Read Article

    • 6 Ways To Create A Successful TikTok Marketing Strategy

      6 Ways To Create A Successful TikTok Marketing Strategy

      A successful TikTok marketing strategy is important in 2022, but advertisers don’t have to do it alone.

      Read Article

    • Tax Prep Advertising Can Use The Lessons of 2022 To Better Target Audiences In 2023

      Tax Prep Advertising Can Use The Lessons of 2022 To Better Target Audiences In 2023

      The DMS Tax Preparation Survey offers clues for tax preparation advertisers who want to reach consumers with relevant messaging, when and where they are shopping.

      Read Article

    • 3 Strategies To Modernize Lead Generation Campaigns

      3 Strategies To Modernize Lead Generation Campaigns

      Brands can modernize their lead generation strategies with versatile creative, customized plans and personalized re-engagement.

      Read Article

    • What Is A Publisher?

      What Is A Publisher?

      Do you want to understand the best way to reach the right people with the right messages at the right time? Consider partnering with publishers.

      Read Article

    • How To Boost Engagement By Using Video In Emails

      How To Boost Engagement By Using Video In Emails

      Video advertising within email is gaining momentum with brands, aligning with the overall growth of video in advertising.

      Read Article

    • It's Okay To Believe Advertising IRL > Metaverse
      11 months ago

      It's Okay To Believe Advertising IRL > Metaverse

      Metaverse marketing is likely to be a part of future strategies for brands & businesses, but many are taking a “wait and see” approach while relying on the “tried & true,” like performance marketing.

      Read Article

    • Tax Season Marketing Should Target Americans Filing Their Taxes Early To Pay Off Holiday Debt
      about 1 year ago

      Tax Season Marketing Should Target Americans Filing Their Taxes Early To Pay Off Holiday Debt

      Filing taxes early to get refunds is the top way Americans are planning to deal with holiday overspending.

      Read Article

    • Valentine’s Day Advertising Must Reach Shoppers Ready To Take Action
      about 1 year ago

      Valentine’s Day Advertising Must Reach Shoppers Ready To Take Action

      Valentine’s Day is a time for ecommerce brands to reach consumers in the mood for love – and shopping. DMS surveyed 250 adults in January and found that gift giving has extended beyond just couples.

      Read Article

    • Post-Holiday Personal Finance Marketing: What Converts Based On A Recent Consumer Survey
      about 1 year ago

      Post-Holiday Personal Finance Marketing: What Converts Based On A Recent Consumer Survey

      71% of Americans believe they possibly overspent during the holidays. The brands that best engage borrowers by demonstrating how their solutions will deliver quick relief are likely to see success.

      Read Article

    • What Are Data Signals?

      What Are Data Signals?

      Real-time data signals can pinpoint the individual consumers most likely to respond to your advertising when they are ready to take action.

      Read Article

    • The Top 5 Social Media Strategies For Lead Generation

      The Top 5 Social Media Strategies For Lead Generation

      These best practices can help advertisers set up social media campaigns that successfully generate leads while creating ongoing engagement.

      Read Article

    • What Is Real-Time Data?

      What Is Real-Time Data?

      Quality, real-time data helps understand consumer desires and predict future actions, allowing advertisers to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time to encourage action.

      Read Article

    • Consumers Start Holiday Product Searches On Google – Make Sure You Are Easy To Find
      over 1 year ago

      Consumers Start Holiday Product Searches On Google – Make Sure You Are Easy To Find

      To connect with consumers during the early phases of their holiday shopping, advertisers need to make sure their brands are easily discoverable in multiple places on Google.

      Read Article

    Return to Home
    DMS Logo

    Tech-Enabled, Data-Based Performance Advertising

    facebook icon twitter icon linkedin icon instagram icon

    © 2021 Digital Media Solutions, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Digital Media Solutions and its logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Digital Media Solutions, LLC. All other company and product names referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

    Digital Performance Advertising

    linkedin icon
    facebook icon
    twitter icon
    instagram icon

    Subscribe To News From DMS


    About DMS
    Toolset Solutions DMS Insurance DMS Performance Ad Market DMS Ecommerce Advertising DMS Consumer Finance DMS Education DMS Managed Services DMS Nonprofit Advertising DMS Subscription Advertising Newsroom DMS Insights Investor Info
    Contact Us
    (877) 236-8632 connect@DMSgroup.com Careers Become A DMS Advertiser Become A DMS Publisher
    DMS Proprietary Technology
    Aimtell Sparkroom ZipQuote
    Logins
    Aimtell Login DMS Exchange Login DMS Performance Ad Market Publisher Login Sparkroom Login ZipQuote Agent Login
    Privacy & Terms
    Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions Code of Conduct

    © 2022 Digital Media Solutions®, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Digital Media Solutions and its logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Digital Media Solutions, Inc. All other company and product names referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.