It’s hard to have a discussion about affiliate programs without mentioning Amazon.com. They are considered to be the pioneers of affiliate programs. And with over 300,000 affiliates, it’s hard to argue that point.

But affiliate programs are changing. Many, many companies are realizing that the best way to sell products and services on the Internet is to recruit affiliates. Along with this comes a form of competition. Affiliate program managers want you to sell their products, not the products of their competitors. How do they make sure that you stick with them and not defect to the other side? They do their best to make their program more attractive to you.

There are many ways to make a program more attractive to potential affiliates. They can offer a higher percentage of the profits, and/or they can offer more benefits. Benefits can come in many forms, but the topic of this discussion will be the benefits that come from the way sales and visitors are tracked.

Let's bring Amazon.com back into the limelight for a minute. They are huge...everyone knows about them...everyone knows that you can create a site, add some good content, bring in a highly targeted audience, and sell them books! Simple enough...create a site with a good topic, drive traffic to it, send them to Amazon, and get rich. But...it’s been tried before...and guesses what...not that many of those 300,000 affiliates even earn enough to get the minimum $25 check in the mail every quarter.

Why? Is it because you have 299,999 competitors out there selling Amazon.com books just like you are? I'm sure that plays a part, but the real reason is the way you are credited for a sale. You work hard to create a website full of content, and work even harder to promote it and bring visitors to your site. Then, what do you do with that coveted visitor? You wisk them off to Amazon to become their life-long customer, and never to return to your site again!

That may not seem fair to you, but can you complain? They give you a whopping 5% of the sale, maybe even 15% on some of the books if you are lucky. Or, worse yet, they bookmark Amazon.com, and go back to buy the books tomorrow and you don't even get the 5%. Either way they are gone. That precious visitor that could have been a life-long customer of yours is now off to Amazon.com. They will buy a book or two to test out the process. Then after their books arrive, they will merrily open up their browser and type in http://www.amazon.com and spend their entire paycheck buying books.

How much do you get from this return visit? Well, it WAS your visitor after all, right? Unfortunately every penny of that visitor's paycheck will fall into Amazon's pocket. Of course you have to feel sorry for Amazon, though. They aren't making any money after all (violin music playing in the background).

What happened? The same that happens with many affiliate programs. You get paid per click, per lead, or per sale. From that point on, they own that customer.

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