What is Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is the perfect way for Merchants to sell more products online and for Webmasters to develop an income from their website. Part time or full time, being an Affiliate is a great way to develop multiple income streams from promoting products and services from other Merchants.

Think of any product and chances are there's an Affiliate Program for it. Affiliate Marketing is the relationship between website owners and merchants whereby the merchant offers the website owner (Affiliate) a commission fee structure for linking to his/her merchant site to offer goods or services for sale. Affiliates publish websites so they are also known as Publishers and merchants advertise on Affiliate sites, so they are also called Advertisers.

Some advertisers join Networks like Commission Junction to jumpstart their Affiliate Marketing efforts while others create their own in house programs to offer publishers money making opportunities. Publishers (Affiliates) can join the networks to have access to those merchant's (advertisers) Affiliate programs. It's a great way for a home based entrepreneur to make money from his/her computer creating websites to advertise merchant offers on. It's a Win/Win situation for everyone.

"Affiliate Marketing is a new and revolutionary method for driving profits through revenue sharing relationships between online merchants and content sites. Affiliate Marketing pushes products and services out to the consumer on virtual shelf space across the Web, creating more opportunities for merchants to generate sales, for Affiliates to earn revenue from their sites, and for consumers to find the products and services they want on the Web."

As an Affiliate marketer myself, I utilize several network providers listed on this page and I promote some individual Affiliate programs. I am always evaluating new networks and individual programs. The defination I have come up with for Affiliate Marketing is this:

The most effective and simple way of earning money from your computer. How's that for a simple explanation? Anyway, that's from the standpoint of the home business Affiliate marketer. Affiliate Marketing to a merchant is somewhat different.

Merchants can use the services of the network providers on this page to build an online sales force. Hence, either party benefits by making more money!