Who can be an affiliate?

Any person or company who owns a website from which they can send traffic via links (banners or text links) to the advertiser’s website could be an affiliate. In addition to the above, an affiliate can also be anyone who sends users to the advertiser’s website via Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns the affiliate has created, on Google, Facebook and other search engines. The rise in popularity of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter has created another type of affiliate, who sends traffic to advertisers via their social media profiles and pages.

Affiliates send traffic to advertisers in order to receive a pre-agreed sum of money or level of commission, if the users they have sent perform the agreed action (usually a sale). The simplicity of the affiliate model means that anyone can become an affiliate, from a price comparison website, to a content site, a forum or even a blog.

Who can be an advertiser?

Any company owning a website where users can perform some sort of transaction could be an advertiser. Most of the times, this transaction refers to an order/sale, in which case the advertiser has an e-commerce website (e-shop), but it can also refer to other actions like the completion of an order form, sign up to the newsletter, catalogue request etc.