Working in affiliate marketing you are faced with many genres of affiliates, genres such as PPC, voucher codes and content, to name a few. Another extremely popular genre of affiliate is cash back.

Cash back has grown massively in recent times and it is an extremely important part of any well run affiliate programme. What cash back sites do is take the commission earned from an affiliate sale and hand this back to the consumer, its true no catch, no gimmick, as an online shopper using a cash back site will ensure just that, you get “cash back”.

Surprisingly however recent studies carried out by price comparison site Kelkoo concludes that two out of five shoppers don’t use cash back sites and a massive 25% of those have never even heard of a cash back site.

The incrementality of cash back sites has often been a bone of contention in the affiliate space. Would a merchant have received this sale without the cash back site? Do cash back sites erode a merchant’s bottom line and create disloyalty amongst existing customers?

Whatever your thoughts on cash back sites they are an extremely important part in the affiliate mix. This article goes some way to suggest there maybe room for growth in this space amongst existing cash back affiliates as well as room for a new player.

Watch this space!