What is affiliate marketing and how do affiliates make money?

Types of affiliate programs

There are three main types of affiliate marketing:

• Unattached 
• Related 
• Involved 

Unattached affiliate marketing

In this approach the affiliate has no connection to the product or service they are linking to. The affiliate doesn’t have any related skills or experience and therefore isn’t an authority or able to make any claims about the product or service they’re linking to. They aren’t recommending or advising their site visitors to click through to the company.

Related affiliate marketing

With related affiliate marketing, affiliates have a connection to the product or service they are linking to. The affiliate likely has influence with site visitors and has expertise to generate traffic and they’re likely viewed as a trusted source of information. It’s important to note that the affiliate in this instance doesn’t make any claims about the use of the products or services included via the links. 

Involved affiliate marketing

In this case, an established connection has been achieved between the affiliate and the products or services they are linking to. They’ve probably used the product or service and have first-hand experience of it and are sharing the link because they’re wanting to openly promote what’s on offer based on their positive encounter or outcome. 

The affiliate is using their experience as an advertisement for the company’s offering, however, the affiliate needs to be mindful of what they associate themselves with directly, because they are viewed as a trustworthy source of information. Should the affiliated link lead to a negative experience for someone, this could result in reputational damage for the affiliate. For this reason, it’s not a bad idea to include a disclaimer of sorts to cover your back.