Affiliate marketing program is a source of income for publishers who have been waiting and doing nothing with their web sites. The program is provided by online merchants and marketing agencies. Web site publishers can join these programs and earn money at regular intervals. Yet, others can take it as a part time activity to earn extra money.

There are different kinds of affiliate marketing programs provided on the web. The first distinction made in this regard is as per profit sharing. There are advertisers who pay for banner impressions and advertising, some pay for the traffic that reaches their web site, some pay for business leads generated by the affiliate and some pay when the visitor completes the purchase process.

There are different commissions or earnings for different tasks that have been completed by the affiliate. For display advertising, earnings are often fixed for 1000 impressions and the term used is Cost Per Mille. Higher earnings and benefits can be had by completing the tasks for models on lead generation and sales generation.

There are two popular concepts used in online web promotions and they are called banner exchange or link exchange. These programs help web site owners promote their sites by exchanging the links or banners. The publishers place each others banners on their site and thereby direct the traffic from one site to the other. Similarly, in affiliate marketing, by placing the advertisement of the merchant or advertiser on the sites, the publisher helps in directing the traffic from his own site to that of merchant’s. However, in affiliate marketing program it is one sided with the merchant being the one who pays for the placements.

In lead generation and sales based programs, the publisher places enquiry submission forms or order forms on the site. If an interested user finds it worth buying anything or just making enquiry about the products, he fills the form and the request gets forwarded to the publisher. These are the business leads and the qualified ones may be direct orders or purchase request. This information is more valuable and gives more money than advertising. It is sold to the service provider or the merchant from the respective industry.