Partner marketing is an online based sales channel in which advertisers compensate third-party partners to generate sales or leads to the advertiser's products or services.

The digital marketing channel enables individuals to make money by referring consumers to an online store. Partners receive a commission when their marketing efforts result in a transaction. On the other hand, advertisers (businesses who own the online store) receive high quality traffic and pay only for results. Partner marketing platforms offer a platform to connect advertisers and partners, handle support queries, tracking and payments. A partner marketing platform can be a self-service or full-service solution. At Adtraction, every advertiser has a dedicated contact who provides optimisation services in order to ensure that the program runs with the best possible result.

Partner marketing is often referred to as performance marketing, with CPO / CPA (cost per order / acquisition) being the payment model. This means that when a partner drives a transaction on the advertiser’s website, that partner gets paid a commission. Therefore, it becomes a cost per order for the advertiser.

A partner is an individual or a company who has traffic, an audience or followers and wants to earn commission. Typical partners at Adtraction are:

​Content creators

Content creators can range from the world’s largest media publishers to niche content sites.

Influencers

Influencers include Instagrammers, bloggers and profiles with an audience on social media platforms.

Affiliates

Commonly discount portals, loyalty platforms, email marketers and other partners with traditional roots in affiliate marketing.

Technology partners

Technology partners can be on-site technologies, mobile apps, SEM partners and similar.

Finance partners

Typically SEO and SEM partners with comparison sites, but can also include other finance oriented partners.

An advertiser is a business connected to a partner marketing platform. Any business with a website where users can make a transaction can be an advertiser. However, with partner marketing being performance based, partners tend to choose to promote well known brands that are likely to convert browsing users into customers, rather than smaller brands. Being an established and well renowned business will positively affect the success of a partner program.

The advertiser has a partner program which allows partners to retrieve tracking links. The partner program is administered by a partner platform, and enables the advertiser to track clicks and transactions that originate from the website or channel of a partner.

A partner marketing platform commonly serves as the link between advertisers and partners. The platform offers a solution for tracking conversions, whilst also handling support and payments. Partner marketing platforms are specialised in the field of partner and affiliate marketing, and help advertisers to set up successful partner programs that are attractive for partners to promote.

Partner marketing is a digital marketing strategy that facilitates the connection of advertisers and relevant partners. The payment model is often referred to as CPO / CPA, meaning the partner gets paid when contributing with a sale to the advertiser. The advertiser, on the other hand, pays only when a transaction or an agreed event on their website has occurred.

The above post provided you with basic knowledge of what partner marketing is. Interested in learning more? Check out our other Help Center articles.