Affiliate marketing is a method of promoting web businesses in which an affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts. Compensation or commission may be made based on a certain value for each exposure (CPM), visit (Pay per click), registrant or new customer (Pay per lead), sale (usually a percentage, Pay per sale or revenue share), or any combination of them.

Merchants like affiliate marketing because it is a "pay for performance model", meaning the merchant does not incur a marketing expense unless results are realized. Some businesses owe much of their growth and success to this marketing technique, especially small and midsize businesses. However, unlike display advertising, affiliate marketing is not easily scalable.

Some merchants run their own affiliate programs while others use third party services provided by intermediaries to track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates. (see outsourced program management) Merchants can choose from different types of affiliate management solutions including: standalone software, hosted services, shopping carts with affiliate features, and third party affiliate networks.

Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the web, 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, total sales generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the UK alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005. [1] MarketingSherpa's research team roughly estimates affiliates worldwide will earn $6.5 billion in bounty and commissions in 2006. This includes retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, 'Net marketing' education offers, subscription sites, and other lead generation, but it does not include contextual ad networks such as Google AdSense. [2]

Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling and retail sectors[citation needed]. The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance and travel sectors[citation needed]. Hot on the heels of these are the entertainment (particularly gaming) and internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from B2B marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix[citation needed]. Of course, this is constantly subject to change.

A wholesale list is a piece of compilational media (collection of information) providing details for various wholesale companies. One can use a wholesale list to save hours of researching about wholesaling companies as the producer of a wholesale list will already have done it. For example a wholesale list may contain details of companies which sell computers at wholesaler prices to customers. Someone wanting to buy computers at wholesale prices does not need to hunt for the companies theirself as there is already a wholesale list on that product existing - thus saving them time and effort.

There are many companies providing wholesale lists, some better than others, some free, some for a small price.

Generally, those lists that require a fee to view, may not be updated frequently, the data may be old, and the companies listed may no longer be in business. While this may also be the case with a free list, since there is no investment, nothing has been risked, or lost as the retailer searches for new trading partners.

The web has many free wholesale list resources, that do not require a membership or fee to view the sources. The lists are sorted by product category, making it quick and easy to find a specific product line.

Some wholesale list websites have internet forums. Those forums may be frequented by companies who are less than desirable, but promote themselves under a false user name, giving a testimonial indicating they have bought from the supplier, and had an excellent transaction. Use caution when seeing "Testimonials" of past buyers. Verify all contact information, and if you have any doubts, pass the wholesaler up.

When viewing a wholesale list it is best to do to three things before selecting a vendor as a new trading partner. First, check their Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating if the company is in the United States or Canada.

Then, check the internet Whois to see how long the wholesale company has been on the web, who owns the website, and who the webmaster of the website is. Check to see that contact information in the Whois, at the Better Business Bureau and on the wholesale supplier's website contact page, all match. If they don't match, ask the supplier why there are numerous addresses. See if the area code of the phone numbers all match as well.

As a final step before purchasing from a new trading partner, if the company is in the United States, check the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) site for complaints against the company. The FTC has lists of complaints filed against internet companies. They show letters sent to the company, tell if the case went to court, explain how the case was resolved, including any fines levied against the company. In some cases, companies committing internet fraud are shut down by the FTC. The FTC has a complaint area on their site, for online complaint submission.

While some wholesale list are used in eBay scams, see [1], others offer more credibility by giving a money back guarantee. An example wholesale list can be seen at wholesaleapedia