Affiliate Program (also known as referral programs or partnership programs / partnerships) offers a way to take advantage of traffic coming to your website to provide income (money) for you, without having to hassle and expense of selling anything. Instead you get a commission for having created a transaction. The so-called "deals" and how its value, different for each affiliate program.

Affiliate programs are generally offered by sites selling goods or services, although some are offering deals in other forms, such as for example by bringing visitors to sign up to subscribe to free newsletter, fill out a form, or simply download a screensaver.

Most affiliate programs give a commission based on percentage of income that results from the purchase of the visitors coming from your website. For example, if you participate in an affiliate program that offers 10% commission and you send a visitor who buy goods worth $ 100, then you will get a commission of $ 10. Big
commissions range from 1% (usually for expensive goods from the famous producer) to 50% (usually for small items such as eBooks, etc.).

Some affiliate programs offer a Pay-per-lead than Pay-per-sale - the meaning of the word, you brought them a prospective customer and they pay great commissions have been established, as a "reward" for the opportunities they get to market goods / services for prospective customers. The practice of affiliate models, many held by the insurance industry and credit cards.

There are also other models that offer affiliate payments (with a very small value) for each delivery to a site visitor, or a payment for each ad unit displayed (usually a banner or ad pop-up/pop-under). Affiliate program so make payments regardless of whether a visitor into their customers or not.

If you join in an affiliate program, you will be given a URL (or set of URLs) that will be a special format you use to create a link to the site owner / affiliate program provider is. This will enable providers affiliate (to producers of goods / services, or third party on behalf of producers of goods / services) to track traffic originating from your website and note if there is action (a purchase, filling forms, etc.) took place.

Conclusion:
Affiliate program is very diverse in terms of overall quality and reliability, commission rates are offered, the shape and scope of assistance / support from the parent site offers in marketing the products or services sold, and so on. By understanding exactly what and how affiliate programs work, you are expected to minimize the risk of not being paid, and maximize your income potential.