If you’re new to the world of online marketing, you may have heard all about affiliate marketing through the grapevine but aren’t sure if it’s a legitimate way to make money or not. In this article, we will discuss why affiliate marketing is still very much alive and worth your time if you want to build an income-generating business on the Internet without having to deal with product creation or sales. In fact, it may be one of the easiest ways to get started and make money quickly! Is Affiliate Marketing Legit? The question at hand is, is affiliate marketing really a viable business model worth taking on as your next effort or just another get-rich-quick scheme. Before we even dive into it, let’s determine, what affiliate marketing is and how it works. Just so we're all on level ground, here's an explanation of what affiliate marketing means and entails in layman's terms: Affiliate marketing is when you partner with brands or companies, (usually online), where they will pay you based on performance metrics set, forth by them in exchange for advertising their product or service. For example, you might have a website that talks about skateboarding. If you were to partner with a skateboard company and agree upon certain criteria like clicks per visit, the number of visits per month, etc., then once those criteria are met then that company would give you a commission on each sale made through your site. Affiliate marketing isn't some black magic and is even a wonder. People often over-complicate it and create a lot of confusion around the concept. Considering some of the biggest online marketplaces such as AliExpress, Walmart, Amazon, and even eBay have affiliate programs, I think it can be safely assumed that affiliate marketing is not a scam. Many big influencers on YouTube, Instagram, and even TikTok these days are affiliate marketers, getting special affiliate links and codes to save their followers' money or get them extra items in games or additional money off in sales. Affiliate marketing is real, just like the stock market is real. Some people are making a lot of money with it and others are not. The people who are not making money feel that it is fake but it is very real to the people who have learned a successful strategy for ad campaigns.