As an affiliate you can offer links to other websites on your website that may be of interest to your users and get paid by those other websites either on a per click, per lead or per sale basis. As a merchant, offering an affiliate program can greatly enhance traffic to your site and hopefully increase your revenues. Some merchants operate their own website affiliate programs using their own tracking systems and their own tracking software whilst others use third party services. As a merchant you pay nothing up-front to your affiliates. You only pay a commission for results.
Many experienced affiliates are wary of merchants that are running their own affiliate programs.
This is because, unlike using a third party affiliate program service, you must trust that the merchant is operating an honorable system that is tracking visits correctly and paying affiliates properly. So be cautious before joining one of these programs and keep an eye on payments that are due to you . What I mean by this is that some affiliate programs make no account for fraudulent transactions or product refunds. Unfortunately many merchants run their affiliate programs poorly. Some of the best names in online retail can be accused of this.