
Affiliate programs are a system where a merchant or advertiser pays other sites a commission for sending visitors to their site. Commissions may be calculated on the basis of the amount of sales, leads (usually some kind of free sign up like a customer giving his details, but in some cases may be more demanding like applying for a credit card, etc.) or for each person who click-thrus from your site to the advertiser.
The big advantage of affiliate programs is that you do not to deal with order processing or customer service yourself. You simply build a web site and drive traffic to it.
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