Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. (Source – Wikipedia)
Affiliate Marketing is one of the true online passive income streams developed in the Internet era. It is one of the pillars of Internet marketers or individuals/ companies looking to monetize their website or blog.
In its basic form, there are three parties in an affiliate marketing arrangement the merchant, publisher and customer.
- Merchant (also known as ‘advertiser’, ‘retailer’ or ‘brand’) Affiliate (also known as ‘publisher’) Customer
The merchant (advertiser, retailer or brand) can be a company selling products like cameras, clothing or books; services like insurance policies, customer service training or entertainment shows as well as information products like ebooks, courses and audio guides. The merchant is the provider of the product or service ready to pay other people to help sell and promote the business.
An affiliate (that’s you!) is an individual or company that promotes a merchant’s product or service on his/ her website or blog in exchange for earning a commission.
The consumer is the one who actually clicks on the link provided by the affiliate that takes them to the merchant’s website to complete a sale.
