In July 1996, Amazon.com started the Amazon Associates' Program and set a whole new way of doing business in the web. This program allows qualified website owners from all over the world who take part in the program to earn a commission whenever they refer anyone to Amazon's website that made a purchase. From then on, affiliate marketing has progress in an amazing speed. Today, when you receive information of products from internet marketers, you may also be invited to be part of their affiliate team as well.

The role of an affiliate is simply to help the product owner sell his product in exchange for a commission. You carry no stock and you are paid based on your performance. As an affiliate, your job is only to send interested buyers to the sales site. When you have successfully sent traffic to the sales site, your job ends there. The sales site will do the selling. You just need to do the pre-selling of the product. If any of those interested buyers you send to the sales site purchases a product, you will get your commission. One of the benefits of affiliate marketing is that you do not need to attend to customer service issues which can take up a lot of your time. The product owner will deal with the customer directly regarding any product issues.

Becoming an affiliate is very easy. You can join any affiliate program available in the internet. If you have a website of your own, you can place the promotional materials provided by the party offering the affiliate program in your website. It takes only a few minutes of your time to do this. However, if you do not own a website, you can still promote the product via pay-per-click program such as Overture and Google AdWords. Becoming part of an affiliate program is extremely simple, however, more work is required when promoting the products. There are usually thousands of affiliates promoting the same kind of product. It depends a lot on your marketing skills to compete effectively with the rest of them.

Some affiliate programs are run directly by the seller of the product while some of them are run by another party being considered as the third party. If the affiliate program is run by the seller of the product, then you will be dealing directly with the seller when you join the affiliate program. However, if the affiliate program is run by a third party, then you will not be dealing with the seller of the product when you join the program. The third party does not own or sell the product but just manages the affiliate program. It acts as the middle man and will take a percentage of your commission if a sale is made.

The frequency that you will get your commission depends on the program you join. Payment can be made to you on a bi-monthly basis, monthly basis or when a predetermined minimum amount is reached. The mode of payment depends on the program payment policy of the particular program you join. Payment can be made in the form of a check or credit directly into your PayPal account. In some programs, you will be asked to indicate your preferred choice of payment and you will be paid the way you want it.

If you are considering doing internet marketing, whether part-time or full-time, becoming an affiliate is the initial step to take. Being an affiliate will enable you to gain some first hand experience on what internet marketing is all about. Joining an affiliate program is simple. Most of the programs are free to join and some even provide training for new affiliates.