Affiliate marketing: An innovation in marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing channel in which advertisers (merchants) distribute sales collateral (banners, text links, etc.) and recruit marketing partners (affiliates or publishers) who agree to display the advertisements on their web sites in exchange for a commission on any leads or sales that result from actions derived from those ad placements. Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals. It is a technique where other websites will promote your business. Basically the way it works is that an affiliate is rewarded every time a visitor, customer or sale for your business is generated through an advertisement on their web site. This commission varies from depending on what product you are promoting. Through this paper, an attempt has been made to throw some light on conceptual parts of affiliate marketing, like, its meaning, history, strategies, principles, mistakes made by new marketers, issues and value of affiliate marketing.