The earliest forms of the more recently coined term “Affiliate Marketing” came into being with the advent of Tupperware and Amway. Tupperware, a home products line that includes preparation, storage, containment, and serving products for kitchen as also household plastic containers used to store goods and / or foods, was launched by Earl Silas Tupper of Orlando, Florida, in 1948. He developed his first bell shaped container in 1942, and branded it later. Amway, short for The American Way, is a company that uses a multi-level marketing model to sell a variety of products primarily in the health, beauty and home care markets. It was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard Devos of Ada Township, Michigan, in 1959. The core concept of both Tupperware and Amway is “revenue sharing” – paying commission for referred business, which is also the idea of Affiliate Marketing.
TopA New Idea, Or Just A New Name?
Affiliate marketing is commonly confused with either network marketing, or multi-level marketing, or referral marketing, as all these forms use third parties to drive sales to the retailer. Therefore, the marketing industry is of the opinion that “Affiliate Marketing” be substituted with an alternative name. Could it be Performance Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate'), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity, resulting in the emergence of a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors.
Affiliate Marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization (SEO), paid search engine marketing (PPC - Pay Per Click), e-mail marketing, content marketing and, in some sense, display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner [as in the case of films]. (Affiliate Marketing, n.d.)
An affiliate program only brings traffic to your website or business; then, it is your call to turn that traffic into conversions (Olenski, 2014).