Posted on June 29, 2009 by SHASHANK SHEKHAR

Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing system in which a business payment one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. The Affiliate Marketing business has four core players at its heart: the Merchant, the Network, the Publisher and the Consumer. The market has enough in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including Affiliate Management Agencies, Super-Affiliates and Specialized Third Parties vendors. Affiliate marketing connects with other Internet marketing methods to some extent, because affiliates often use regular marketing methods. These technique cover organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as issueing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.
Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online advertising, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication attract much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play an important role in e-retailers’ marketing strategies.