In the context of Internet marketing, an affiliate is a person or company that helps both customers and the marketer through their website. In exchange for this he earns commission for his work. Affiliates send visitors to relevant website where the services or products they are searching for are available.

Affiliates can earn commissions in three main ways. The commissions maybe paid per click, per lead or per sale basis. Also, the affiliates can obtain performance bonuses as well as higher level commissions according to the quality and success of their efforts. Recently, the use of pay-per-click programs has drastically reduced due to the advent of click fraud, and per sale or per lead programs have taken over as the preferred methods used.

The whole process is an easy one for anyone to do, as you simply have to apply for acceptance by the vendor's site, and wait for your site to be approved. The approval process is usually automatic, and each affiliate is given a unique link to paste into his website so that the vendor can track which affiliate is responsible for a particular sale. Some affiliates earn commissions for just advertising through the sites. Most affiliates own their own website and they may sometimes have more than one website. However, though the process sounds easy, it usually requires a lot of patience before the reward is evident.

An affiliate becomes a type of commissioned sales person. There are many advantages to this type of promotion. The affiliate need not actually sell any product, or worry about handling products, postage, delivery, refunds. He has the opportunity to work from home choosing his own hours and be the boss.

The essential factors for a good affiliate performance are levels of traffic, numbers of actual customers, total revenues. These three factors are the backbone of the business. The main aim is to send the maximum amount of traffic to your site. The best way to drive the traffic to your site is to have your own reward program. Determination and discipline is needed for success. The affiliate should ensure that the product which he is endorsing is of good quality. So, careful choice of products and services is required for good traffic levels of actual paying customers. Further more the affiliates now can become partners with other sites and earn commissions for recommending customers for them. This can become added revenue.

Affiliates play a major role in modern internet marketing, and lead to increased sales and revenue for all parties concerned.