Affiliate Marketing is when one web site (the affiliate) promotes another web
site's products or services (the merchant) in exchange for a commission. 

Affiliate Marketing is a 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. 

Through Affiliate Marketing, merchants can place their advertising banners and
links on content sites worldwide and only pay a commission when those links
generate a sale or qualified lead. Affiliated content sites can easily convert their
online content into e-commerce by populating it with these revenue-generating
links. 

How It Works 
With Affiliate Marketing, a merchant recruits content sites to partner with them
as affiliates in exchange for commissions. The merchant provides their
advertising banners and links to their affiliates and assigns a commission for
each click-through to their site, subscription to their service (a lead), or purchase
of their products that is generated from the links. Affiliates place the tracking
code for these ads into their Web pages. Whenever a visitor to the affiliate's site
uses these links to generate a click-through, lead, or sale for the merchant, that
transaction is tracked online. If a product or service is purchased, the customer
pays the merchant directly, and the affiliate is paid a commission for that
transaction. 

Why It's Effective 
Affiliate Marketing allows you to profit online with your current business or Web
site without the hassle of CPM ad buys and uncertainty about the effectiveness
of your ad dollars. Affiliate Marketing provides results instead of promises, and
affiliate programs give you all the tools you need to build and maintain the
most successful affiliate and merchant relationships.