Affiliate marketing is the latest spin on an already proven idea – sales based on commission.

In essence, it is a collaboration between a business and you where the business compensates you, based upon some specified terms – often a customer purchase, but could be simply for leads or internet site web traffic.
Amazon introduced the first mainstream online affiliate advertising and marketing system, offering Amazon “associates” the chance to obtain a fee for each and every e-book that a customer purchased.

Ever since, numerous thousands of firms have created their own affiliate member programs, urging online authors as well as salespeople to make commissions through their collaborations.
Many professional sales marketers and companies make their living from an affiliate relationship. But today lots of “amateur” businesses have set up shop to cash-in on the affiliate market place. All that is required is to construct an internet site, or produce an online e-newsletter, or in some cases simply email their buddies and promote a service or product.
This form of marketing is not unlike the simple recommendation of a product, brand or store – just that you get a fee if a purchase takes place.  You can see that there would be an incentive to over hype a product where a remuneration is involved.
A variety of different methods as well as strategies can be applied to this process.  Developing fully featured internet stores detailing product descriptions and features are quite popular. You can add links to an existing internet site, to something as basic as making suggestions in an email. In each case when a customer clicks through from the promotion to the actual seller your affiliate identifier lets the seller know who’s referring the sale in order to credit back your fee.

The development of affiliate marketing is growing rapidly, as businesses exploit this new revenue stream.   This is especially true of sellers whose services might interest a particular niche market. Joining up with others who might already exist in a niche will save time and marketing budget balanced by the referral fee that is offered.
There are many ways to make money online but with affiliate marketing you don’t have to find a product and often the sales promotion material is provided for you as well. Not all products are available to the new affiliate marketer as some sellers will only accept established players. Some programs require in-depth details about your business which may deter the quick opportunist but there are plenty of schemes that you can join like Clickbank and Commission Junction.