FAQ
What is an affiliate? An affiliate is an independent website that promotes a merchant's products or services in order to drive traffic (customers) to the merchant. Affiliates are sometimes referred to as publishers.
What is a merchant? A merchant is the website that processes and ships the order. In affiliate marketing merchants are also referred to as advertisers
What is an affiliate program? An affiliate program is a profit sharing arrangement between affiliates and merchants. The affiliate drives traffic to the merchant and if that traffic converts to some action e.g. sales, services, leads etc then the affiliate gets a % if the sale as a fee or commission. Read more
Where do you find affiliate programs? There is an abundance of online affiliate programs. Some like SFI are independent others belong to affiliate networks like Commission Junction. Another good source is affiliate directories.
What is an affiliate network? A third party service that brings together numerous affiliates and merchants. Via the network the merchant gets access to all member affiliates and similarly affiliates can join any of the member merchants programs. In addition the network handles all the admin eg aggregation and tracking for both parties. Usually you get a single payment being the total for all your programs. This is particularly beneficial if made up of lots of small amounts. Read more
What is an affiliate directory? An affiliate directory is basically a listing of affiliate programs divided by category. Read more