At its heart, affiliate marketing, which is an aspect of internet marketing, is an online, commission based referral system. Affiliate marketing can be boiled down to a few basic points. A person browsing the internet clicks on a link provided by the affiliate, which takes them to a merchant’s website. The merchant then compensates the affiliate, either for the referral itself, known as pay-per-click, or as commission based on a sale made to the customer. Within this simple internet marketing system, however, are a variety of nuances and strategies that make affiliate marketing an intensive and robust system of internet marketing.