Affiliate marketing is a way of making money online by promoting someone else’s products.

As an affiliate you’re essentially a commission salesperson for the products you’re promoting: You earn a commission for every paying customer you send to the merchant selling the product.

It’s kind of like being a real estate agent: You don’t own the home you’re promoting, but you get a nice commission for promoting it and finding the right buyer.

To see how it works, let’s imagine that Batman is an affiliate for a website called “GetFancy.com”, where customers can buy top hats, monocles and other accessories to make themselves more “fancy”.

Everyone wins here. The customer finds what they’re looking for, the merchant gets a customer he wouldn’t have found otherwise, and Batman gets paid.