Affiliate marketing is just one of a host of advertising opportunities for online industries. Whilst traditional off-line advertising such as sponsorship of events and individuals, magazines, newspapers, billboards and television or radio, produce results they are often very expensive. Whilst some industries or companies may choose to utilise some of these off-line options, most back this up with extensive online advertising, most notably that of affiliate marketing.
The affiliate-marketing program is a cleverly conceived advertising system, which utilises all of the capabilities made available by the Internet. Unlike traditional advertising where companies pay a subsidiary company money to advertise their brand in a bulk up front payment, affiliates work on a sort of reward or commission based level. Because of the way the industry is run there is no need for either the affiliate or the advertising site to pay money up front, which in turn benefits both parties. The fact that no money changes hands until a new client is generated, the onus is on the affiliate to provide results, which in turn benefits the site that has commissioned the advertising.
Many...