Affiliate marketing is a way to earn a commission by selling a variety of products or services. Affiliate marketers register with specific companies that have established affiliate programs. The affiliate marketer then promotes that company’s products or services through blogs, social media, paid advertising, email lists, or other marketing channels. Each affiliate marketer gets a unique link that tracks incoming sales. The company then pays a commission on each sale that comes in from the affiliate’s marketing efforts. There are companies with affiliate programs in almost every industry, and anyone with a large pre-existing audience is an excellent candidate for affiliate marketing. However, having an existing audience or established blog is not necessary.

Amazon has an affiliate marketing program where it pays a commission on referred sales. For example, suppose an Amazon affiliate has a blog page that reviews several Amazon products. The affiliate will earn a commission for each shopper who purchases after clicking the affiliate link on their page. Because of the extraordinary number of products listed on Amazon, an Amazon affiliate can construct an entire online store of affiliate products. It is a simple, one-stop shop for monetizing existing traffic. Unlike most affiliate programs, there is no minimum quota, and affiliates start earning with their first sale.

Affiliate marketing is cost-effective for companies and offers marketers ways to earn additional income or transition from a traditional career. The most common forms of affiliate marketing are blogs and web pages. These may be specialty blogs with a few affiliate products or entire websites built to promote products and services. Other common forms include coupon websites, review websites, email marketing programs, social media pages and groups targeting specific interests or demographics, online quizzes that lead to an opportunity to buy, and paid advertising.