Affiliate Software Documentation

What is an Affiliate Marketing Program?

Affiliate marketing is a system of revenue sharing between a merchant (website) and an advertiser (the affiliate). This system allows the merchant to recruit or sign-up affiliates/advertisers to advertise their products and/or services in return for a commission on sales sold by that affiliate.

Normally, this type of marketing works by having the merchant website create an affiliate program that affiliate members can join. Upon joining, the affiliate is given a unique website URL to promote that merchant's products and/or services. By promoting this link, any referrals that click on this unique link are tracked. When the referring customer buys from the merchant, the affiliate member is given a commission for that referring sale.

Merchants can pay affiliates in many different ways. These include pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, or pay-per-click. This depends entirely on the merchant website and how they want to reward their affiliate members.