One of the popularized advertising techniques among the online retailers is the affiliate marketing. It is a referral partnership based on commissions and is basically between an online retailer who wants the promotion of his product and a website owner.

Mostly in the affiliate agreements, the owner of the website puts ads or links on the website to promote the retailer’s products to the site visitors, which can be the potential customers for the retailer’s product. For this, the retailer shares a profit percentage with the affiliate or the website owner obviously, if there is a lead generation through the transaction.

There are several ways, by which affiliates can earn commission. Some of these can be the number of clicks on the ad, registration for more information or an online purchase etc. The commissions vary with the nature of the transaction. There is a higher commission for sales compared to online surveys.

There is no universal classification for the type of affiliate’s site but commonly they can be classified into Search affiliates, discount websites, personal blogs, niche product or service sites, shopping directories etc.

The retailers who do not have time to invest in the online promotions or those who are not net savvy can outsource their promotional activities to have an access to a larger audience. This type of marketing is also popular with the retailers having tight budgets as you can tailor the agreement to only, pay for those promotions, which result, into sales.

The website owners are also benefitted by the affiliate marketing as it acts as an extra source of income. They do not have to put lot of extra effort as their websites are already running. The affiliates whose primary income is through this try to make the site more attractive and desirable to increase the online traffic as that would lure the advertisers.

However, affiliate marketing does not guarantee success. Since few years, the websites have become overburdened with ads. In this, cluster people view the ads of products, which they already trust. Affiliate marketing is a new concept so there are no fully established regulations and industry standards.