What is an Affiliate Program and how does it work?

[Maisie]

Would some one in this forum explain it in detail to me? Thanks.

[G. Whilikers]

As an affiliate, you are advertising the company or product in exchange for a commission on sales that can be tracked back to you.

It works generally like this: you register for the company's affiliate program and receive an identification code and magic URLs or HTML to paste into your web page. When someone clicks your link or presses the button, the company's web server recognizes your code and tags the visitor in case he buys something. If it leads to a sale, your affiliate account is credited for the commission.

Consider each affiliate program carefully, they're all different in the details such as rules for placement ("spamming" will get you kicked out), what they consider a valid referral, and how you get paid -- some will only pay out when you reach a certain amount.

[Jake]

The first answer is fine, a popular destination for affiliate marketing novices is Warriorforum.com, there are inexpensive member authored tutorials available in their WSO section.

Typically an affiliate might receive 15% of the price of a sale the affiliate helped secure by sending a prospect to the sales site.

Information products with no real production/delivery cost can have up to 50% to 75% comissions at sites like Clickbank.com.

[PayItForward]

Affiliate Program is a way for a Merchant/Business to get additional customers, and pay only for performance (commission for each sale, lead etc.).

Merchants partner with affiliate networks or run their own affiliate programs on their website to launch the program.

Then they reach out to publishers directly or through network to run their campaigns, and get more customers/leads

[Raul]

Affiliate marketing works This way: you promote someone's product, and when anybody but it from your promotion, you get paid a commission for the sale. The Best Way to do this is with your own website, so you decide what to promote.
You can try Wealthy Affiliate, which is free to join, and they give you two free websites, and the training needed to understand how to do it. And as I said, it's completely free to join, so there's absolutely no risk. Most places will charge up front, but Wealthy Affiliate let you see what you'll be doing, so you can decide if it'll work for you. Check it if interested
http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com?a_aid=ffe884e5