:::Types of Affiliate Marketing:::

Types of affiliate websites

Companies and websites in affiliate marketing

Affiliate sites are often categorized by merchants (advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are no industry-wide accepted standards for the categorization. The following list is very generic but commonly understood and used by affiliate marketers.

• Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers offers (search arbitrage)


• Comparison shopping sites and directories


• Loyalty sites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for purchases via points back, cash back or charitable donations


• Coupon and rebate sites that focus on sales promotions


• Content and niche sites, including product review sites


• Personal websites (these type of sites were the reason for the birth of affiliate marketing, but are today almost reduced to complete irrelevance compared to the other types of affiliate sites)


• Blogs and RSS feeds


• Email list affiliates (owners of large opt-in email list(s))


• Registration path or Co-Registration affiliates who include offers from other companies during a registration process on their own website.


• Shopping directories that list merchants by categories without providing coupons, price comparison and other features based on information that frequently change and require ongoing updates.


• CPA networks are top tier affiliates that expose offers from advertiser they are affiliated with to their own network of affiliates (not to confuse with 2nd tier)