When you promote the merchant’s product or service offerings and a consumer purchases a product/service from the brand based on your promotion, the merchant pays you a revenue share of the sale that you helped generate. Affiliate marketing is about relationships. It relies on a relationship between a merchant (eg. Retailer) and you, the affiliate/publisher, as well as a relationship between you and consumers.

The Short Answer: Yes.

The Long Answer:

There are a few things that are needed to actually start.

1. Constant Internet Connection (Data/ Wifi).

2. A Device that can access the internet (Laptop/ Phone).

Everything else CAN be Free.

A cookie is a small piece of data that works with web browsers to store information like user preferences, login or registration information, and shopping cart contents. When someone comes to your blog or website and clicks on your affiliate link, a cookie is placed on their computer or mobile device. That cookie is used to remember the link or ad that the visitor clicked on. Even if they leave your site and come back a week later to make a purchase, you will still get credit for the purchase and receive a commission.

Affiliates can get compensated in various ways, which the merchant determines. The three most common are pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, and pay-per-click. Affiliates only get paid when their promotional efforts actually result in a transaction. Most often, all payments earned by affiliates are paid out through the third-party network the program is hosted on.

There is no certification needed. However, we do recommend that you learn as much as possible about what it means to be an affiliate.

Global investment in the industry is at or above $13 billion and in the U.S. it is around $6.8 billion.