Introduction on affiliate marketing.

What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is hosting links, banners, and product information on a website or blog and then getting paid a particular fee or percentage of a sale whenever visitors click through on these links and make a purchase.In essence, affiliate marketing is selling products or services offered by others and then getting paid for each sale. It's not an exaggeration to say that as long as one has access to the Internet he or she can become an affiliate marketer.

In the early days of affiliate marketing, Amazon.com might be the first to start its affiliate programs. In just a short time, the growth and popularity of affiliate marketing has exploded so that it is now a significant force in selling products and services on the web.Thousands of affiliate programs are available on the web now.Besides, the third-party affiliate platforms have emerged.With its advantages of no costs and risks, and with the advent of e-commerce,affiliate marketing probably will become a main business promotion method in the near future.

What are the advantages of affiliate marketing?
There are many advantages of affiliate marketing and I can't list all of them on this page.The biggest advantage I would say is: no risks and no costs.For people who would like to do business on the Internet, security is their first concern. In that case, join an affiliate program is really a good choice because you don't have to pay anything whether you earn enormous money or not. What's more, you don't have to spend much time either. You can even earn commission while cooking or sleeping. That is to say, to promote for an affiliate program you earn money every second!

Another advantage of affiliate marketing I can say is that you don't have to worry about the products, the shipping and after-sale service. For affiliates, they only have to manage their blogs, forum or home pages on social networking like Facebook and Myspace. Their job is making more people click through their links or purchasing products on merchants' websites. Of course,there are also rules that affiliates must follow so that the reputation of that business will not be destroyed, and the two parties can cooperate smoothly.