The focus lies in supporting others to successfully sell products and directly benefit from successful transactions. Affiliates usually profit from some kind of pay-per-sale or pay-per-display compensation. The company, on the other hand, is able to gain access to a more diverse potential customer base without additional active sales or marketing efforts.
How they do it: As a user of Dropbox’ file hosting service, customers can earn additional hosting space by inviting friends to use the service as well.
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How they do it: Rather than offering an affiliate program on its own, some Pinterest users use the platform to publish their own affiliate links. Users adding their personal affiliate link (e.g. for Amazon.com’s affiliate program which redirects to a relevant product) to a popular post generate a lot of clicks and thus receive a share of the revenue. Due to its engaged user audience and scale, users interested in earning an income by posting affiliate links are attracted to the Pinterest platform.
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How they do it: Amazon uses the affiliate model to both promote products of 3rd party vendors as well as their own products through paying promoters who advertise their products. Through individually trackable links, Amazon can track every website visitor to its source and hence has transparency how much sales are driven by affiliates.
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How they do it: Airbnb offers an affiliate program for the acquisition of customers as well as new hosts. Websites who feature an Airbnb listing get a commission for every booking that they drive through their audience. Same goes for affiliates who showcase Airbnb hosting opportunities.
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How they do it: Best Buy offers an affiliate program which allows website owners to earn commissions every time a visitor on their page makes a qualifying purchase after clicking through an affiliate link./ ad banner.
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