What's An Affiliate Program?
In 1997,
Amazon.com launched its affiliate program. By around mid 1998, it had over 30,000 affiliates. Currently, it has over one
million affiliates worldwide. It wasn’t the first of its kind, but it was the first to make the concept of affiliate programs prominent and known to the public.
But what are affiliate programs? To answer this question, let’s take Amazon.com as an example ...
Amazon.com sells books and heaps of other goods online. Books offer information on millions of widely-varied subjects. And when you think about it, to each of those subjects, there’s a Website already dedicated.
So Amazon.com thought:
“Why not have all those specialized Websites work for us?” ... Of course, the idea of having millions of Websites bringing in buyers would make any CEO drool. But how did Amazon.com manage to do that? Well, that’s the basis for any and all affiliate programs ...
The affiliate provides links from his/her Website to particular books and merchandise on the Amazon.com Website, books and merchandise that are related to the affiliate’s Website theme and content. Amazon.com uses special tracking software to track which Website sends each visitor. If that visitor decides to buy from Amazon.com, the sender affiliate gets a commission.
And that’s basically what an affiliate business is all about ...
- Website X sends a visitor to Company A.
- Visitor buys something from Company A.
- Company A pays Website X.
Easy, right? Indeed it is. But simplicity is not the only virtue of affiliate programs. There are
many advantages working for the affiliate business model, much more than meets the eye.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to discuss next ...
The benefits of being an affiliate 
See you soon,
Dr. Tamer Aly