Analysing Programs
The history of Analyzing programs on the Internet is relatively recent, probably beginning somewhere in the mid-1990’s, but since this innovation wasn’t being tracked in a formal way early on, and it’s anybody’s guess who the first official sponsor was.
Urban legend and plenty of press regarding the history of affiliate marketing says that Amazon was the first to use a successful affiliate program, and their own press history certainly backs up a huge success story. In 1998, they began inviting retailers and webmasters to link to the Amazon site for a commission on each sale, and soon had 30,000 affiliates. Currently, they have over 600,000 links and a patent to their name for their in-house system.
Amazon is certainly the most successful marketer to use affiliates to date. They have used it to create profits in the millions and created a coveted niche for themselves, but they probably weren’t the first to use the concept.
Some smaller companies that successfully used affiliate links to market their services included AutoWeb, EPage, PC Flowers & Gifts, and BrainPlay. While none of them functioned on a level anywhere near that of the Amazon colossus, they did use their programs successfully before Amazon put affiliates squarely in the spotlight for Internet marketers.
Did the Internet Invent? Affiliate Marketing? In a word No. The concept has been around for years, and it’s a hugely successful one because it works. Referrals from one business to another (such as a real estate broker being affiliated with a particular mortgage lender) have taken place for years.
Affiliate Marketing has grown astronomically in the last ten years, simply because it is so successful. It works for merchants at both ends of the link and consumers like the ease of use.
However, as more and more companies implemented the programs a new wrinkle developed tracking commissions and understanding conversion rates became difficult. Most companies did the work in-house and there was no clear-cut method. In some cases, affiliates would have a falling out if there was a discrepancy between their records. Who was right? Hard to tell in many cases.
In 1996, both LinkShare and Be Free addressed the problem of managing affiliate programs by offering Internet solutions. Commission Junction, launched in 1998, became the next big player in the field. These three recognized a need for reliable tracking, management and reporting for affiliate partners by an impartial third party company that could manage the day-to-day details and they developed programs that handled it beautifully, enabling the continued expansion of affiliates.
The next logical step was a way for businesses to find and research affiliate programs. The word was out that affiliate programs worked , and worked well. But many people just didn’t know where to go to find good websites to link back to them for potential CPA or CPC partnerships.
With so many affiliate marketing programs available, it could become overwhelming when someone tried to get started as an Internet marketer. In 1997, Refer-it.com became the first directory of affiliate programs on the Internet that comprehensively listed available affiliate programs. Allan Gardyne’s Associate Programs was created in 1998 and was immediately followed by other key sites, illustrating the popularity of, and need for, this type of information.
Today, affiliates programs are steadily on the rise. Not all of them will make it. The ones that do will succeed largely because the individuals working on them put in the time and effort to study the history of successes and failures that have gone before and learn from them.