What is affiliate marketing?

When two websites start sharing revenue to sell a product or service, it is known as affiliate marketing. Amazon was the world's first to start large-scale affiliate marketing. Most of the affiliates get paid around 25-50% for sales generated through their websites. Payment is made on the number of clicks, registrations, leads, sales etc or as agreed between the two parties. When a person clicks on the advertisement on a website the cookie is saved in the person's computer, which is tracked and if a sale is done then the person gets paid the amount of commission agreed. Anybody having a website which has good number of visitors can join an affiliate program. There are many affiliate marketing websites through which you can choose the products you would like to promote through your website. Commission Junction, Click bank and Linkshare are some of the well-known affiliate marketing websites. Thousands of publishers join affiliate marketing daily. They want to promote other products or services and start making money. The affiliates get their daily statistics and reports on the number of clicks, sales, leads etc. Affiliate marketing connects buyers and sellers. This is how online marketing works. The amount of money spent online is increasing day by day. E-commerce is picking up at a very fast rate worldwide.