By now, you and your team have likely heard about influencer marketing, affiliate partners, co-branded campaigns and commission-based partnership models. Affiliate programs have been around in some fashion since the late 1980s, but the increasing use of cookies to track user activity online, combined with the blogging and social media boom of the mid-2000s, made affiliate marketing a household phrase. Seemingly overnight, blogging empires and social media influencers with thousands of followers started building businesses based around affiliate links and earning commissions on sales. Affiliate and influencer marketing isn’t only for bloggers or content creators. In fact, organizations and businesses of all sizes can implement effective, successful and scalable influencer partnership programs to help achieve their goals. That said, a successful affiliate marketing program relies on long-term relationships with influencers. However, building them requires consistency and strategy. This guide breaks down the best affiliate marketing strategies to identify influencer partners and cultivate long-lasting relationships.