To webmasters an affiliate program comes as a boon. Affiliate programs not only help them to add value to their website but also help in earning some handy cash.
Some benefits of joining webmasters affiliate program are as follows
Add value to the webmaster website
Good means of earning a living
Freedom to go to work when ever felt like
Freedom to earn all
Provide valuable services to visitors
A webmaster affiliate program consists of three major players. The affiliate merchant, the affiliate and the third party network provider. Let us discuss them in detail.
The merchant
An affiliate merchant supplies products/services to the customers and pays out commissions as per the sales or visitor referrals. He also handles functions such as order processing, shipping and customer service.
The affiliate
An affiliate is a person who takes part in an affiliate program. Affiliates are also referred as publisher and he gets a commission from the affiliate merchant for referring visitors to the affiliate merchant's website.
The third party
A third party network acts as an intermediary between the affiliate merchant and his affiliates and ensures that the affiliate process runs smoothly. Some of the most popular third party networks are commission junction (cj.com) and Linkshare (linkshare.com).
In many cases big affiliate merchants run their own 100% in-house affiliate programs. These in-house programs do not require a third party network as all operations including the tracking software are included in the server.