Your Net Business

3 Responses to “What's the difference between affiliate marketing and network marketing?”

1. Gil says:

   September 2, 2010 at 10:28 PM

   Here is the definition of Affiliate marketing and network marketing per wikipedia:

   Affiliate Marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliates marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as ‘retailer’ or ‘brand’), the network, the publisher (also known as ‘the affiliate’), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third parties vendors.

   Network Marketing, (also called Multi-level marketing (MLM) , direct selling, and referral marketing,) is a term that describes a marketing structure used by some companies as part of their overall marketing strategy. The structure is designed to create a marketing and sales force by compensating promoters of company products not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of other promoters they introduce to the company, creating a down line of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation.

   The products and company are usually marketed directly to consumers and potential business partners by means of relationship referrals and word of mouth marketing.

   MLM companies have been a frequent subject of controversy as well as the target of lawsuits. Criticism has focused on their similarity to illegal pyramid schemes, price-fixing of products, high initial start-up costs, emphasis on recruitment of lower-tiered salespeople over actual sales, encouraging if not requiring salespeople to purchase and use the company’s products, potential exploitation of personal relationships which are used as new sales and recruiting targets, complex and sometimes exaggerated compensation schemes, and cult-like techniques which some groups use to enhance their members’ enthusiasm and devotion. Not all MLM companies operate the same way, and MLM groups have persistently denied that their techniques are anything but legitimate business practices.
2. WebSweat says:

   September 2, 2010 at 10:28 PM

   There’s no price of admission for affiliate marketers, those working on the internet earn a fixed commission for each paying customer they send to the product supplier. Affiliates have relative few restrictions, free to advertise and bring in customers, short of mis-representing the company or in some cases offering bribes to buyers.

   I don’t have first hand experience with this world but have heard plenty of stories about how network marketing seem to usually has some setup costs, samples, membership fee, etc. too often in the MLM game the company’s biggest source of income is from new member’s setup cost and sales to their immediate family members. I did watch a recruitment video some once forced on me, in the 20 minute presentation there was no description of the company’s product, a similar pattern in the MLM game the talk was all about profiting from the recruitment game.
3. Graber Marketing says:

   September 2, 2010 at 10:28 PM

   Well actually there is pretty big difference.
   The Affiliate is basically the person with all the connections. The person that refers a customer to a promoted product. Its very simple and not very involving.
   Whereas Network Marketing is all about helping your team grow and becoming successful together. Because in Network Marketing it’s all about helping the people you sponsor start earning as soon as possible. More on that here: http://www.jasongraber.com

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

This site uses commentluv and keywordluv. Enter YourName@YourKeywords in the Name field to take advantage.

This site uses KeywordLuv. Enter YourName@YourKeywords in the Name field to take advantage.

Security Code: