E-commerce merchants are in constant need for additional traffic to their site. Site without traffic cannot add shoppers – therefore merchants need affiliate programs to increase the needed traffic to the site. The method of affiliate marketing has been known for years. The need of affiliate programs has increased over time, since each day new e-commerce merchants join the market, and all look for new and successful ways to bring more traffic.

In order to find an affiliate, the merchants need to decide upon several things. If you are a merchant, you should make a decision about the amount you want to pay affiliates for each sale they bring you (for example, 20% of the sale). In the process of finding affiliates, you can decide to join affiliate network, which would recruit affiliates for you. The alternative to acquiring affiliates is to maintain an affiliate program yourself, which is more complicated, since you'll have to find affiliates on your own, and also purchase tracking system, that would check the coming traffic. In the affiliate network the affiliates see your program and subscribe to it; the traffic is regulated by the network itself.

Any Web site can choose to join an affiliate network, even if it doesn't offer merchandize. Sites benefit from having an affiliate, when advertisers, attracted by the high traffic, put an ad on the site. But e-commerce merchants benefit from affiliate programs, because they increase traffic and bring shoppers to the site - the basic idea standing behind e-commerce.