Do your friends and family know you make money through affiliate marketing?

You know, when people ask me who created affiliate marketing, I just chuckle to myself. Because the truth is, affiliate marketing has been around in some form for centuries—ever since entrepreneurs and salespeople started getting rewarded for referring customers to products and services.

But if you want to know who pioneered the modern affiliate marketing model we all know and love (and for some, love to hate)? Well, you’ll have to rewind back to the wild, wild web of the 1990s.

It was the early days of the internet boom, when anyone with a modem could be a digital pioneer. The woolly, untamed world wide web was this frontier space where new opportunities seemed to be popping up every nanosecond.

How I Did My First Affiliate Marketing Gig

I was just a young go-getter back then, always looking for the next way to move product and put dollars in my guitar collection. When I first discovered this thing called the “world wide web,” I knew it was going to be something big. I’m talking big like an alien spacecraft landing in your backyard big.

So I start blogging and promoting products through these newfangled “websites.” Just putting myself out there, building an audience, and letting people know what kind of goods and services were worth their hard-earned dollars.

Before long, I’ve got this nice little web traffic stream coming through my digital digs. Joe Public is digging my content and trusting my recommendations. I’m racking up a decent number of sales just by sharing my thoughts and endorsements.

That’s when it hit me…

Maybe I don’t have to be directly selling this stuff myself. What if I just let the vendors and merchants tap into my audience for a nice cut of the profits?

Bingo. That was my “lightbulb” moment. I started setting up referral programs and affiliate systems with companies of all shapes and sizes. If I sent buyers their way through special trackable links, I’d get a nice kickback commission on whatever they spent.

It was like being a free-range digital salesperson. No more inventory or logistics to worry about. Just racking up those sweet, sweet affiliate paydays by making hot recommendations.

So I Jumped in with Both Feet and a Guitar Pic in My Hand

I was hooking up with all sorts of merchants and ad networks, from big-name brands to skeezy no-name operators (let’s be real, the 90s web was a lawless place). Testing out different models, from pay-per-lead to rev share to fixed commissions.

And you know what? It worked like a Cadillac. A big, beautiful, gas-guzzling Cadillac printing money on overdrive.

People were digging my content and trusting my advice. They were whipping out their credit cards and making purchases through my links, pumping fresh green into my pocket with every sale. All just for making smart recommendations as an influential online voice.

Of course, once word got out about how lucrative this affiliate game could be, a whole bunch of other smart cookies jumped on the wagon. They saw me coining it and decided to run the same plays themselves.

Affiliate Marketing Revolution

Next thing you know, the affiliate marketing revolution kicked into full throttle. Big brands launched their own programs and networks. Two-bit entrepreneurs started churning out blogs and spam just to get those sweet referral paydays.

Affiliate marketing became a whole ecosystem with publishers and influencers on one side, merchants and advertisers on the other, and a bunch of affiliate networks and tracking platforms connecting all the dots.

But Not Everyone Entering This New Cash-Generating System was Legit

Yes, shady tactics and bad operators definitely emerged to wreck things for everybody. Incentives got abused, trust got betrayed, and spam got completely out of control. Authorities had to step in and crack some skulls to clean up the cesspool.

But at its core, the essence of affiliate marketing has stuck around and kept evolving all these years later. Getting rewarded for making valuable product recommendations and referring new customers to businesses? That’s always going to be a winning proposition when trust and good ethics are in place.

Do You Know Who the First Affiliate Marketing Millionaire Was?

Speaking of which, did you know the first self-proclaimed “affiliate marketing” millionaire was a mom blogger from Missouri? No kidding! Back in the early 2000s, this lady started a website sharing tips and product suggestions for parents. She made millions just by promoting relevant baby stuff through her blog and newsletter. Just think about that for a minute.

Anyway, I could ramble about the history and evolution of affiliate marketing for hours. But for now, I’ll just say this: If you would have told me back in the 1990s that my little referral program experiments would inspire an entire industry now generating over $12 billion per year? Well, let’s just say I would have taken a good long pull from my scotch glass.

Crazy world we live in, eh? Who knows what the next big thing will be? All I know is I’ll be ready to grab that money train by the horns.

Staying true to the topic of this Insights post, I bought this product and have been making sales as an affiliate marketer. I thought it’s only fair for me to share my link with you.

What are you waiting for? Go make some money as an affiliate. You don’t even need a website.

Until next time,

Candace