Affiliates are websites that allow you to sell your products on their websites. You provide a link from an affiliate website to your website, or you provide a special section (group of webpages) to be added to the affiliate’s website. You need to have software that keeps track of the business that comes in from each affiliate so that you can pay each its sales commissions.

Although you can buy software or software services that will automate affiliate administration for you, you still have to make the initial arrangements yourself. Yes, it ’s true that some affiliate software enables potential affiliates to sign up online to be affiliates and then integrates them into the tracking system. But you’re going to get your most productive affiliates by recruiting them and then keeping them happy.

For many products, affiliate marketing works well. For many years it was an inviting means of marketing on the Web. Today with the advent of eBay, eBay Stores, Google, and Froogle, and their capture of a large market share in ecommerce, affiliate programs are not as important to most online retailers as they once were.

For more information on affiliate programs try Affiliate Guide (http:// www.affiliateguide.com) or LinkShare (http://www.linkshare.com).

That will get you started. Affiliate software is commonly available. For instance, a third-party makes an affiliate plug-in program for Miva Merchant, thus converting that very capable ecommerce program into an affiliate manager.

Cost-Effectiveness Review

The automation of affiliate maketing with software makes it costeffective. Unfortunately, each affiliate relationship is a business relationship that must be initiated and nurtured via personal contact. This takes a lot of time and may no longer be cost-effective.