A new wave of marketing is on the rise because of ubiquity of the Internet. This new method of marketing is called affiliate marketing and from the term itself, we can surmise the two most important elements involved: the merchants and the affiliates.

Firstly, we should clearly define what affiliate marketing is. Affiliate marketing is also referred to as internet marketing because it is channeled through the web. Affiliate marketing makes it possible for various and complimentary websites to share customer traffic to their sites and making revenues through advertisements usually in the form of banners and text advertisements. The merchants or those who sell their commodities in the internet pay commission to the website owners or the affiliates for sending traffic to their site. The affiliates do so by putting in advertisements of the merchants on their site which through provocative advertisement and attractive layout, encourage surfers to click on them.

Who are the people directly involved in affiliate marketing? Of course, the two parties generating money from a sale are the merchants and affiliates. The market is incredulously big, setting no boundaries on geography, nationality or age. Anyone who has access to the internet is already your target market. This is definitely a big opportunity for the merchants who can sell or auction anything in the internet. Of course, they would need partners who can market their sites on targeted groups of people. Affiliates would usually have tons of articles on a specialized topic in their sites to attract people who share the common interest. A sports website would be regularly visited by sports enthusiasts so it would make sense to post banners and advertisements of sports cable channels or famous sports apparel

The merchants pay commission to their affiliates on three bases: The cost per sale, cost per lead and cost per click. When affiliate refers a visitor to a merchant’s site and purchases goods or services from the merchant, this is referred to as a cost per sale. When the visitor accomplishes a form on and gives out personal data, the affiliate would be paid a cost per lead. And when the visitor is lured and clicks on the merchant’s banner on the affiliate’s website and gets redirected into the former’s site, the affiliate would get a cost per click commission. An affiliate should work on its creativity and marketing skills so that he gets the most out of these three methods in which he can get paid.

Affiliate marketing opens new doors for business and entrepreneurship whether for the merchant or the affiliate. The Internet has really gone a long way and will continue to do so as we go farther into the cyber age. Internet marketing is just starting.