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If you are thinking of generating a passive income or maybe you just want a secondary income to pay your monthly bills, but do not have your product or maybe you too do not have your own business, well, you aren’t alone. For many marketers to monetize their website traffic and for entrepreneurs to start an online business, affiliate marketing is how they got started with generating income. When it comes to generating passive income online, you must have heard of affiliate marketing as an option. It is an excellent source to generate that side income or even you can become a full-time affiliate marketer if you got the speculation in it. If you believe in and understand the value of the product that you are selling, affiliate marketing is an immaculate opportunity to make money. Well, it is not wrong to say that affiliate marketing is one such way through which you can earn money while you are asleep. Waking up, opening your laptop, and seeing those figures that you earned when you were asleep, gives a great feeling. Isn’t that a dream? But it’s not as easy as it sounds. It requires a lot of consistency, dedication, and understanding of the right strategies to implement. If you are still thinking of whether to start affiliate marketing or not, you must consider the advantage of this rewarding revenue system. So, let’s dive deep into what affiliate marketing is and how it works. What Is Affiliate Marketing?   Affiliate marketing is a way of promoting other people’s products and earning a modest amount of commission in return for every sale. You generally must have heard a lot of bloggers, YouTubers, or influencers telling you to buy something through the affiliate link that they provide. This affiliate link tracks when someone purchases something through the link and in return, you earn a commission on that purchase. Let’s try to understand from scratch how it works. Source Firstly you need to find an affiliate program or network. Research various programs and go through the overview of the program or network, the types of products, and the commission that is offered. Once you find the suitable one for you comply with their requirements and fill in all the required details. Once you receive the confirmation on your registration you can start creating valuable content and add the affiliate that you are provided. Once any of the users buy a product through your affiliate link, you earn a commission. Once you have reached the minimum payment level, the program or network shall send you the payment. You can promote your affiliate links through various channels such as blogs on the website, newsletters, social media, and so on. Make sure that wherever you share the affiliate links you are allowed to do so. Parties To Affiliate Marketing Now let’s try to get more clarity on affiliate marketing by understanding the different parties that are involved in it. Typically four main parties are involved in affiliate marketing. They are: Affiliate Merchant Affiliate Marketer Network Consumer 1.Affiliate  Merchant: Affiliate merchants are usually the creators of the product. It can also be the seller or retailer of the product. This party can be an individual or may also be a big company. The party usually has a product or service to sell and is ready to pay a commission to the affiliate marketer when its product gets sold. Also, sometimes affiliate merchants need not need to be the creator of the product. A popular example of this could be, Amazon Affiliate Program. 2.Affiliate Marketers/ Affiliates: Affiliate marketers, also known as publishers, are the ones who help to promote the products from the merchants by creating different types of content such as blogs, videos, social media, posts, and so on. Once a user of that content buys a product through the affiliate link provided along with the content, the affiliate marketer is entitled to a commission. An affiliate marketer can too be an individual or a company. 3.Network: Here, the affiliate networks are the ones that manage the affiliate marketers. They act as a link or intermediary between the merchant and the affiliates. The affiliate merchant may lack resources to track and time to manage payments and hence may rely on these networks. The merchants can also work with affiliate marketers within the network. One such popular affiliate network is Clickbank. 4.Consumer: This party is the end-user of the product that is being promoted. Without consumers, there isn’t any transaction and so they hold great importance. They are the ones who utilize the link and purchase the product. Based on this, the merchants pay commissions to affiliate marketers through their network. How Beneficial Is Affiliate Marketing?  Almost 16% of global e-commerce sales are attributed to affiliate marketing. More than 94% of publishers use several affiliate networks simultaneously. (Source- Truelist.co) Online sales for big brands are generated by affiliate marketing to the tune of 5% to 25%. (Source – Book: Kickstart Your Own Affiliate Marketing Business) Here’s what makes affiliate marketing effective and beneficial: Affiliate marketing is a cost-effective solution to promote the products of a business across different channels without spending a tonne of money in vain. The growth of affiliate networks has made it more simple for businesses to launch, run, and, most crucially, draw in new affiliates to market a brand. As affiliate marketing is cost-effective, there is low risk involved in it. As the payments are only made when the purchase is done, resulting in fewer chances of risk. One can easily scale up your business at a very low cost. There is flexibility as at very little or no cost you can make your affiliate network smaller or bigger. For a merchant, the target audience will be what the affiliates promote the products to, as they are already in their spheres the trust built here is more. This trust leads to transactions. Hence, giving a better ROI to the merchants. For affiliate marketers, it is