The affiliate marketing is one of the oldest forms of advertising on the Internet called affiliate programs. In principle it is a partnership between the operator of a Web site and an advertiser. The website operators will provide advertising space and will be paid whenever, if the advertiser by the advertising could sell a product. The website operator (called also the affiliate or Publisher) used a link with an individual code here to lead the prospective buyers on the side of the provider (called also advertiser or merchant). About the link encoding, the merchant can count exactly how many customers have been mediated by the affiliate.

Impressive 80 percent growth is the dynamics of the new form of advertising. So, the Aachen-based Internet agency team in medias, expected annual growth rates of 80 percent. However, this dream growth is due to a good portion of the previously low market penetration. 87 percent of the German companies, according to the Agency, have never used affiliate marketing. Especially small and medium-sized companies have Catch-up potential. A major reason for the success of affiliate marketing is the thematic coordination of advertising and website content. It’s to promote little sense for bikes on the side of a horse. Here comes the crucial difference to banner advertising: the affiliates choose their merchants themselves.

Select only merchants, which products will probably also be Web page visitors interested in. Because only when the visitors click, the affiliate earns something. For the same reason, the partner will place the advertising as well. Both lead to significantly higher click through Council benefit affiliate such as merchant. Web has become win-win-situation affiliate marketing is one of the performance marketing. The merchant pays only for actual customer contacts (pay per lead) or customer purchases (pay per sale). The difference of these two forms of compensation consulting intensity of the advertised product or service.