Overview
Online affiliate programs allow retailers to grow their sales by partnering with online publishers and blog owners. These programs generate sales commissions for site owners when they refer their visitors to online retailers. $106bn was transacted online as a direct result of affiliate marketing in 2008, with affiliates earning over $7.3bn in commissions. Publishers now sign up for an affiliate program and provide a link to a product or website - and when any user clicks on this link and makes a purchase, the publisher is compensated between 2%-15% of each sale.
Most recently, it's not just websites/blogs that are referring sales, but rather individuals themselves, who are using real-time sites like Twitter and Facebook to influence their friends and followers by recommending products to buy, music to listen to, and movies to watch. These real-time discussions are becoming important sources of referral sales and leads for online retailers such as amazon.com
Everyone with access to the internet today is a publisher. They are a voice. Twitter and Facebook status updates, aka microblogging, have mashed the real-time nature of instant messaging with the global scale and voice of blogging. For example, according to The NPD Group, 41 percent of all gamers report that they rely on word of mouth to obtain information on video games.
