A brief introduction to affiliate schemes

Affiliate schemes can be one of the most cost effective ways to promote your website because you only pay a commission on the sales you receive from the scheme. Unlike other forms of advertising where you have to pay whether you receive any sales or not.

So how does it work?

By using an affiliate scheme, other websites (the affiliates) have a link to your website and then if a visitor follows that link and buys something from your website, you simply pay a small commission on that sale to the affiliate. If they don't send any visitors who buy something, you don't pay anything.

The technology involved is really simple. The links that are hosted on the affiliates' websites use a “cookie” to track the visitors on your website. Then a small piece of code added to your checkout page records the value of any sales from visitors who have the assigned cookie. This is the only modification that needs to be made to your website. Everything else is handled by external software.

OpenGlobal can manage an affiliate scheme for your website as part of our promotional packages. By using one of our affiliate schemes you can get your website advertised across several big name websites including voucher websites and price comparison websites.

Affiliate schemes are used by many large companies, including the big supermarkets, most airlines and pretty much all of the internet's biggest names. The insurance industry has been using these techniques for years, which have led to the rise of websites such as Confused.com, CompareTheMarket.com and GoCompare.com. These sites are literally sending millions of pounds of business to the insurance companies operating the affiliate schemes.

Contact us today on 0845 269 962 4 to find out if affiliate schemes might be right for your website.