amazon.com affiliate

Amazon.com (Amazon) launched its associate
program in July 1996:
Amazon associates could
place banner or text links on their site for individual
books, or link directly to the Amazon home page. [6] When visitors clicked from
the associate's website
through to Amazon and
purchased a book, the
associate received a
commission. Amazon was not the first merchant to
offer an affiliate program,
but its program was the
first to become widely
known and serve as a
model for subsequent programs.[7][8] In February 2000, Amazon
announced that it had been granted a patent[9] on components of an affiliate
program. The patent
application was submitted
in June 1997, which
predates most affiliate
programs, but not PC Flowers & Gifts.com
(October 1994),
AutoWeb.com (October
1995), Kbkids.com/
BrainPlay.com (January
1996), EPage (April 1996), and several others. [4] Historic development Affiliate marketing has
grown quickly since its
inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a
marketing toy in the early
days of the Internet,
became an integrated part
of the overall business plan
and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the
existing offline business.
According to one report,
the total sales amount
generated through affiliate
networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005.[10] MarketingSherpa's
research team estimated
that, in 2006, affiliates
worldwide earned US$6.5
billion in bounty and
commissions from a variety of sources in retail,
personal finance, gaming
and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs.[11] Currently the most active
sectors for affiliate
marketing are the adult,
gambling, retail industries
and file-sharing services. [12] The three sectors expected to experience
the greatest growth are
the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors. [12] Soon after these sectors
came the entertainment
(particularly gaming) and
Internet-related services
(particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the
affiliate solution providers
expect to see increased
interest from business-to- business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate
marketing as part of their mix