Commercial radio stations will sometimes fill up their advertising slots with a type of commercial known as Per Inquiry (PI). This type of advertising guarantees absolutely nothing up front, but the radio station does receive a commission when a listener uses an individualized toll free number to purchase the advertised product.

The reasons some radio (and television) stations accept this type of advertising is because there is the potential for revenue whereas that potential goes away if they choose not to accept this type of advertising.

This is the same premise behind affiliate revenue strategies online. In this scenario businesses offer other, secondary, website owners the potential to earn income when the secondary website is successfully used as a portal between the potential customer and the primary website.

In essence when you become an affiliate you are provided a means to track incoming traffic. If the individual purchasing a product started the process at your website then you will be credited for the sale. In turn, you will receive a commission for that sale. In an online environment this can be done hands-free.

Because you can only receive money on sales completed using your site it is important to make sure your site is as well developed as possible. This means your site not only has to look great, but it should rank well in search engines.

You may be asking yourself why someone would even be interested in developing an affiliate program. After all, why would they need to pay you for something that is featured prominently on their website.

One of the key principles in business is the need to advertise your product. Affiliate revenue programs provide a relatively inexpensive way to advertise a product.

Secondary sites willingly agree to place product information on their website, they further work to present the product in a very positive light. Some affiliate revenue sites will dedicate an entire website to the product. For the primary site this provides an incredible vehicle for advertising. What's more, the originating site owner pays absolutely nothing until the product is sold through this secondary site.

Many primary site owners have found that it is both cheaper and more effective to pay an individual for actual sales than it is to pay for advertising that may or may not deliver customers.

This process allows virtually any site owner to claim a stake in revenue that has typically been reserved only for advertising agents.