Posted on June 29, 2009 by SHASHANK SHEKHAR

Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for every visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketingattempts.The Affiliate Marketing industry has four core players at its centre: the Merchant, the Network, the Publisher and the Consumer. It is a kind of online marketing which is frequently overlooked by the advertisers. Affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile as serch engines , emails etc capture much of the attention of online retailers . But still it continues to play very significant role in internet retailers market strategies. In most cases it uses a “pay for performance” model meaning that the merchant does not incur a marketing expense unless results are accrued hance most merchants prefer this. The initial cost setup is excluded. However is not easily scalable like other techniques. Therefore their programs require significant work and maintenance.