Legend has it that Jeff Bezos (the CEO and founder of ) was at a cocktail party, where a woman told him that she wanted to sell books through her Web site. But the story that is most well known, and that ensured that affiliate marketing hit mainstream press articles, is that of the Associates Program.
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Cybererotica was probably the first to run an affiliate campaign with its CPC (cost-per-click) program, where it would reward referrers for each click-through to its Web site.Īffiliate marketing moved closer to the mainstream, with programs offered by companies such as CDNow (its BuyWeb program launched in 1994), PC Flowers & Gifts ( ),, and a handful of others.
Like many eMarketing innovations, the beginnings of affiliate marketing are to be found in the adult industry. Affiliates are paid for performance, so affiliate marketing is also referred to as performance marketing. Because of this, affiliates are sometimes viewed as an extended sales force for a Web site. This system of reward where compensation is based on referrals is called affiliate marketing and is used to describe this type of marketing in an online environment.Īffiliate marketing is used widely to promote Web sites, and affiliates are rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, or customer provided through their efforts. Brokers for insurance products are an example, but these referrals can be hard to track. There are a number of businesses that market this way offline. They would be paying you a finder’s fee for new customers. Imagine that the restaurant gave you 10 percent of the bill for every person that you referred to the restaurant. But you, as the referrer, do not see any of the cash benefit that the restaurant does! If you recommend a restaurant to a friend, and that friend visits the restaurant because of your recommendation, the restaurant’s revenue will have increased because of your referral.