Affiliate marketing is a relationship between a minimum of three parties – Advertiser, Publisher, and Consumer, who use each other’s network and resources to execute the sale and earn profit/commission.

Anyone can be an advertiser as long as he’s willing to spend money to promote his services or products. Nowadays you can see business ranging from electronics to tourism, food, banking and insurance trying to take the internet’s route to promote their goods and services.

Some affiliate programs pay you for each sale while others pay you for each lead generation or clicks. There are three primary affiliate program commission models that bloggers should pay heed to-

Cost Per Click or CPC: Visitors on your blog click advertiser’s banner and visit his site. This payment model is called CPC or cost per click. Businesses trying to garner online popularity for their company pages usually follow this method.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): When visitors referred by affiliate marketers (bloggers like you and me) buy goods and services from advertisers, it is called CPA model. Most of the E-commerce websites follow this payment model.
Cost Per Lead (CPL): When a visitor referred by the affiliate marketers clicks advertisers’ links and fill out the given online form, it is called CPL. Online businesses trying to prepare a mailing list to promote their services use this method to collect leads.

Affiliate marketing presents an alternative to regular advertising to publishers. It not only saves cost but also takes sales to all new heights and creates social media brand awareness. Going forward, the scope of affiliate marketing will continue to increase.