One of the reasons that so many programs exist is that cash-back rewards are fairly easy to implement, usually taking the form of a middle-man in the marketing boom known as Affiliate Marketing. We've all heard of Affiliate Marketing, but we don't all understand how it works, and most of us don't have the time or resources to take advantage of it's power. The basic model of Affiliate Marketing requires that a website owner or blogger (the Affiliate) publish links to a partner company's website. When a visitor clicks the link and navigates to the partner company's webpage and purchases a product or service, the Affiliate gets paid a commission. This is, in truth, how most online rewards programs work, how professional bloggers support themselves, and how thousands of regular people supplement their income. Cash-back rewards programs are simply "link-farms": when they get paid by the partner companies, they share the cash with you, the consumer.

This model works because individual consumers are often unable to take advantage of affiliate partnerships with out the help of the middle-man. Though it sounds like an easy system, unfortunately becoming an Affiliate Marketer requires some resources: a webpage, domain-name, and web host; a lot of work: maintaining links, forming partnerships, and a ton of marketing; and traffic, traffic, traffic: enough visitors to their site or blog to make all the work and resources worthwhile.