an automated marketing program where a Web advertiser or merchant recruits webmasters to place the merchant's banner ads or buttons on their own Web site. In fact, you can now register with one or more various affiliate marketing networks, such as Commission Junction, LinkShare or Dynamic Trade, that will not only provide a variety of sites with which you can affiliate, but will also keep track of your affiliate earnings.Webmasters will receive a referral fee or commission from sales when the customer has clicked the affiliate link to get to the merchant's Web site Web site to perform the desired action, usually make a purchase or fill out a contact form. technology called the World Wide Web (aka the internet, the web, the vast digital ocean of information at our finger tips). And with any new technology or media, companies quickly realized they had a new opportunity to market their products and services to consumers via the millions of websites they visit every day. The most common types of affiliate programs include pay-per-click, pay-per-lead, and pay-per-sale.Affiliate marketing is commonly confused with referral marketing, as both forms of marketing use third parties to drive sales to the retailer. However, both are distinct forms of marketing and the main difference between them is that affiliate marketing relies purely on financial motivations to drive sales while referral marketing relies on trust and personal relationships to drive sales. Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization (SEO), paid search engine marketing (PPC - Pay Per Click), e-mail marketing, content marketing and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.