Affiliate marketing is a new trend that has revved up the sales of merchants and service providers all over the world. Rather than following the conventional chain of distribution, the manufacturers and merchants are selling their goods and services directly on the Internet. The products are sold on the websites and portals of the merchants or dealers as well as other website owners called affiliates. Affiliates do marketing and also sell the products of the dealers.

Affiliate network is an intermediary that provides services to the affiliates and merchants. The network has business liaison and terms with numerous affiliates and merchants, and therefore helps in connecting the two business parties. A website publisher or owner who wishes to promote or sell the products of a merchant may not be able to find or access the merchant’s service. It is exactly where the network comes in handy.

Apart from linking the merchant with the affiliate, these networks offer a number of services. The most important role of such networks is the administrative and managerial tasks on behalf of an affiliate. An affiliate, by himself, may not be able to manage the accounts with different merchants. Some small companies (affiliates) even hire their own affiliate managers and yet others avail the service of the networks.

Affiliate networks also provide consultancy services for the merchants and affiliates, monitoring and tracking of the revenues that get generated and the distribution of the payments on behalf of the merchants. Instead of sending small payments that are earned by the affiliates, the merchants pay the networks monthly or after regular intervals and the networks in turn disburse the amounts to the individual affiliates.

Like merchants, affiliate network provide a program for the affiliates. The program describes as to who can join and what services can be availed, as well as the revenue that would be shared between the merchants and the affiliates. In lieu the affiliate and merchants are supposed to pay accounts management and maintenance fees. Affiliate networks usually focus on specific segments of affiliates and merchants. This means that people having more or less the same kind of web resources as well as the people dealing in more or less same kind of products.