subject: Background Of Affiliate Programs [print this page] Affiliate programs were first introduced only a few years after the internet was established. The concept first came to create an internet based marketing system. The idea of sharing revenue with the referral media was very old in the business world and with this program; the theory of revenue sharing enters into online trading. The first attempt about affiliate partnership based marketing was placed in 1994.
One of the major business organizations that started affiliate programs was CDNOW. In November 1994, they started BuyWeb, the first site with click through selling system. There were adult sites in the same context before, but this was the first non-adult site with affiliate program. Their affiliate product was music and for that they made a contact with the Geffen Records.
One of the giant online merchandiser, amazon.com, came into this trend in 1996. They provide their link in many of their associate sites with plain text based ads or banners. In exchange to the service, they gave commission to their affiliate partners. Amazon is one of the most important sites that brought the affiliate programs into the limelight. They even applied for a patent in 1997.
Many of the affiliate ad providers like personal sites with reasonable traffic. Thats because these sites are closer to the visitors than the commercial sites. The viewers get a personal touch in those sites; even for the advertisements. So they can easily attract the visitors.
The cost effective solution of the affiliate marketing system took over almost every business organizations that use internet for their product promotion and selling. The most common beneficial businesses of this system are gambling, adult and retail selling. However, in the recent years cell phone, travel, finance, internet based service and entertainment became a large part of the whole program.
