Affiliate marketing got its start on the Internet back in the 1990s. As with any new technology companies were quick to realize an opportunity to market their products and services using the World Wide Web. Aggressive companies looking to expand their sales platform were quick to realize that the Internet had the potential to reach people around the globe like never before. Today affiliate marketing allows for products and services to be present to consumers via millions of sites and blogs that are visited daily.

Once the search engine's arrive during the mid-1990s the Internet grew exponentially and became a massive e-commerce. Website created valuable content provided tremendous benefits to Internet server and the same website owners wanted compensation for their hard work. The earliest forms of online advertising like the placement affiliate marketing or CPM evolved, and more accountable forms of affiliate marketing came to be. Affiliate marketing is at the very core of a relationship between three partie: the consumer, the affiliate, and the company's product is being sold.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Technology can be pretty daunting, and that includes the Internet. There's a lot to grasp and understand online, the people who came up with e-commerce and the advertising format that came to be affiliate marketing really led the way in what we can do today online. The same people had to rely on technology that we know as ‘the cookie.’

Cookie technology works with your web browser to store information about the visitor, his or her preferences, their registration information, their login information, and their shopping cart contents. If you have ever opted to have a site remember your username and password that's a cookie. Have you ever noticed when you're searching the Internet for deals, and you suddenly start to see banners and ads related to what your search was appear on other websites? A cookie makes that possible.

With affiliate marketing the cookie has another task that is to remember the link the visitor clicked to arrive at the site. The cookie can even store the date and time that it took place and it can be used to remember the type of website or the content on that site. There are different types of cookies and each has their own use, but when it comes to affiliate marketing first party cookies are what is used. When a visitor visits the website of the publisher and clicks the ad of an advertiser, the visitor’s browser receives a tracking cookie that identifies the advertiser the publisher the ad and the amount of commission. This data is then stored within the link, in what is called parameters. In order for you to be paid your commission for a sale as an affiliate a tracking cookie must be in place. If you forget to include your special linking information in your links, this cookie cannot be created, and you will not be paid for the sale.