There are two types of affiliate program marketing. One exists outside the parameters of multilevel marketing. The second, which we'll be discussing, refers to participants in a multilevel marketing program as "affiliates."
In that context, affiliate program marketing means selling your company's product, while enrolling other affiliates. This builds your down-line (affiliates who you recruit), thereby providing you with an upline (the commission you receive for their sales and recruitment efforts).
When you sell your product to customers, you receive a percentage of sales. Twenty percent is not unusual. Another sliver of total revenue gets kicked upline, with the rest (presumably) going back into the company.
Assuming that sales make up 50 percent, give or take, of your monthly revenue, you must be a strong and tenacious salesperson. You must also have good recruitment skills, so that those you enroll are rolling commissions upline to you. That, in a nutshell, is affiliate program marketing at work.
affiliate programs - Earn commissions up to 40% of the Net Revenue or $250 CPA