Affiliate marketing is a referral based marketing scheme which involves the payment of commission to sales persons known as affiliates by the online business known as affiliate merchants for any sales lead generated by the affiliate. So affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing program between the affiliates and the affiliate merchants.

Amazon.com - the premier in affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing has given rise to many success stories and thousands of leading businesses have adopted this technique as a reliable means of promoting goods and services. Amazon.com is considered to be a pioneer in this regard and has thousands of affiliates in the current date. The affiliate program giving by amazon.com is lucrative the only problem being competing with thousands of affiliates.

Online affiliate resources

There are many good directories available online from where you can get information about the companies that offer affiliate programs. Some good directories are associateprograms.com, refer-it.com, 2-tier.com, clickslink.com and cj.com

Sites such as affiliatetoolkit.com help publish affiliate programs online and help in announcement of the affiliate program by submitting the site to affiliate program directories. While others like affiliatewire.com provide news regarding latest developments in affiliate programs through free online ticklers for websites. Another reliable website that has information for both affiliate publishers as well as advertisers is cj.com better known as commission junction. This site provides resources, database and information related to affiliate marketing and is a reliable affiliate network service provider.

Affiliate marketing is not a magical solution to earn money but an extremely strategically one. The right affiliate program with the right kind of planning would go a long way in ensuring success.

There are many resources online that offer quality information and latest articles on affiliate marketing. One good website to refer in this regard is valuablecontent.com