Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement in which affiliates receive a commission for each visit, signup or sale they generate for a merchant. This arrangement allows businesses to outsource part of the sales process.^[1] It is a form of performance-based marketing where the commission acts as an incentive for the affiliate; this commission is usually a percentage of the price of the product being sold, but can also be a flat rate per referral.^[2]

Affiliate marketers may use a variety of methods to generate these sales, including organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, content marketing, display advertising, organic social media marketing, and more.

Though the largest companies run their own affiliate networks (for example Amazon), most merchants join affiliate networks which provide reporting tools and payment processing.^[2]