The focus lies in supporting others to successfully sell products and directly benefit from successful transactions. Affiliates usually profit from some kind of pay-per-sale or pay-per-display compensation. The company, on the other hand, is able to gain access to a more diverse potential customer base without additional active sales or marketing efforts.
How they do it: By cooperating with 3rd party businesses, American Express can actively drive customers to spent money with them, e.g. through giving an increased amount of loyalty reward points for certain partners.
Learn more about American Express →
How they do it: Rather than offering an affiliate program on its own, some Pinterest users use the platform to publish their own affiliate links. Users adding their personal affiliate link (e.g. for Amazon.com’s affiliate program which redirects to a relevant product) to a popular post generate a lot of clicks and thus receive a share of the revenue. Due to its engaged user audience and scale, users interested in earning an income by posting affiliate links are attracted to the Pinterest platform.
Learn more about Pinterest →
How they do it: Marriott offers an affiliate program, allowing certified affiliates to earn money from every stay or vacation package which is booked through their website. Affiliates can be for example travel blogs. As an affiliate one also gets access to special offers as well as support from the Marriott Affiliate team which helps you to market your online offering.
Learn more about Marriott International →
How they do it: In 2014, Spotify discontinued its affiliate program. It allowed users to refer their friends to the service. After five of their friends signed up to Spotify, the referring user received a free month of Spotify.
Learn more about Spotify →
How they do it: As a user of Dropbox’ file hosting service, customers can earn additional hosting space by inviting friends to use the service as well.
Learn more about Dropbox →