The history of Affiliate marketing and its pros and cons.



The basic underlying principle behind Affiliate marketing is the ability to view a business site through the site of an affiliate. For doing this, the business concern pays the affiliate. That is, an affiliate plays the role of a salesman in the field of internet marketing. Hence the basis of affiliate marketing lies in the traditional method of revenue sharing. The concept of revenue sharing can be explained as paying some third party for referring business.

The forerunner of affiliate marketing is CDNOW and its BUYWEB service. The idea was to give the listing of all the CDs that can be purchased online in music website. The next site to follow in its foot steps was Amazon.com. It is also a known fact that in latter years, amazon.com informed that a patent was granted on all affiliate programs and its components.

Now affiliate marketing has reached to such an extent that it has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Though at the height of its popularity it also has regions where there is a need for improvement. The most important aspect of affiliation management that needs to be looked into is its management. It is known fact that such a rewarding industry, when lacking in proper management cannot generate the targeted revenue. More over some of the ill managed affiliate programs are the reason for spam and false advertisement.