Affiliate marketing: perspective of content providers

Abstract: This thesis depicts how content providers (aka publishers or affiliates)
use affiliate marketing, a performance oriented internet marketing. Three
different content providers were interviewed in order to find out detailed
information about their usage of affiliate marketing.

The thesis identifies main advantages and disadvantages of affiliate
marketing for content providers and specifies conditions, under which
affiliate marketing is more beneficial than other types of online
advertising. Moreover, the process of selecting affiliate marketing program
by content providers is described.

This paper concludes in a model of a typical affiliate marketing usage.
Furthermore, the work proposes using different terminology for content
providers, because it was found out that the term content provider does not
cover all aspects of the business any more, as affiliate marketing can even
be used without providing any content. Finally, recommendations for
companies, that are planning to start a new affiliate program, are also
added and the work suggests several topics for further research in this
field.