I Need More Affiliate Marketing Help

[cryptblade]

I have two questions about affiliate marketing, and I hope some of you can help me. These are kind of general questions, though.

1) Are the main purposes of affiliate marketing programs designed for sales generation -> lower cost of sales, lower acquisition cost of sales, and/or link generation?

2) Are affiliate links able to help boost SERP ranking by sheer links volume? Especially for custom affiliate programs without the redirects of CJ, BeFree, Linkshare, etc - which I hear can negatively affect links - can a custom affiliate program that does not have redirects offer a boost in inbound link volume and boost SE rankings?

[webstudio1]

I don't work with custom affiliate programs, however for the merchants I manage, generally, they have affiliate programs to increase sales and primarily use affiliates as a customer acquisition tool. From the merchant's point of view, the idea is, that once they pay commissions to the affiliate and the network they are using, for the referred customer, that customer will go straight to the merchant, from then on.

SERP ranking is based on a variety of factors, so sheer links volume would not always increase ranking. From my experience, relevant content is the most important, followed by related keywords in page titles and product descriptions, along with your domain name, and links to other related and/or relevant sites.