What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based online marketing strategy in which one website or entity (the affiliate) promotes content, products, or advertisements on behalf of another business (the merchant or advertiser).

The affiliate’s goal is to drive traffic, leads, or sales to the merchant’s website.

How Affiliate Marketing Works

The process typically involves the following steps:

1. Affiliate Promotion: The affiliate features links, banners, or content that encourages usrs to visit the merchant’s site.
2. User Action: Visitors click the affiliate’s link or ad and may complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a form.
3. Tracking and Attribution: Technology (such as unique affiliate links or tracking codes) records the traffic and activity generated by the affiliate.
4. Compensation: The affiliate earns a reward, often in the form of a commission based on sales, leads, or other predefined performance metrics.
   

Types of Affiliate Compensation

Affiliates can be compensated through various models, including:

• Pay-per-sale (PPS): Earning a percentage of each sale generated
  
• Pay-per-click (PPC): Earning based on the number of clicks to the merchant’s site
  
• Pay-per-lead (PPL): Receiving payment when a visitor completes a specific action, like signing up or registering
  
• Hybrid models: Combining multiple payment structures for flexibility

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing provides advantages for both merchants and affiliates:

For Merchants:

• Expands reach without upfront advertising costs
  
• Only pays for measurable results
  
• Access to new audiences through affiliates’ platforms

For Affiliates:

• Potential for passive income
  
• Ability to monetize content or traffic
  
• Flexibility in promoting products or services that align with their audience

Role of Technology in Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing relies heavily on technology for:

• Tracking referrals and conversions
  
• Generating unique affiliate links
  
• Reporting and analytics to measure campaign performance
  
• Automating commission payments

Why Affiliate Marketing Matters

Affiliate marketing has become a core component of digital advertising because it aligns incentives, encourages collaboration, and allows businesses to reach highly targeted audiences efficiently. It is widely used in e-commerce, software, finance, travel, and other industries.

Common use cases

301 redirects serve multiple strategic purposes in digital marketing. They’re essential when rebranding a domain, restructuring website architecture, consolidating duplicate content, migrating from HTTP to HTTPS, or removing outdated pages while directing traffic to relevant alternatives. E-commerce sites frequently use them when discontinuing products to redirect customers to similar items or category pages.

Implementation best practices

Proper implementation requires attention to several factors. Always redirect to the most relevant page possible rather than defaulting to the homepage. Avoid redirect chains (multiple consecutive redirects) as they slow page load times and dilute link equity. Monitor redirects regularly using tools like Google Search Console or Screaming Frog to identify and fix any issues. Keep redirect mappings documented for future reference during site maintenance.

Impact on user experience

Beyond SEO benefits, 301 redirects prevent frustrating 404 errors that damage user trust and increase bounce rates. They maintain continuity for bookmarked pages and external links, ensuring visitors always find working content regardless of how they accessed your site.

Learn more: Audience