Affiliates can get compensated in a variety of ways, which are determined by the merchant. The most common are pay per sale or pay per lead. Affiliates only get paid when their promotional efforts actually result in a transaction. Most often, all payments earned by affiliates are paid out through the third-party network the program is hosted on.

In affiliate marketing, affiliate programs are run on affiliate networks. Networks help affiliates register and apply to individual programs and act as the trusted intermediary between affiliates and merchants. For example, networks host the merchants’ creative (banners, links, etc.), handle all tracking and reporting, and automatically pay out commissions to affiliates based on the rules set by the merchant. The network uses cookies to track a customer’s progress from the affiliate’s blog/website (or multiple affiliates’ websites) through the merchant’s shopping cart. The network then automatically pays out commissions to affiliates based on the rules set by the merchant. A few of the most common affiliate networks are ShareASale, Commission Junction, LinkConnector, Admitad and Linkshare.

In order for any affiliate network (which you will work) to be able to track all sales, you have to place a tracking script we provide on the checkout “thank you page” of your website. Its placement is simple since the only parameters you will have to pass are the order ID and amount for each sale. The commission you offer affiliates is one of the most important criteria based on which affiliates choose which program to promote, making this decision a very important one.