Shoeboxed.com has produced an interesting infographic on the history of affiliate marketing.
One item jumps out at me, and that’s “The Beginning” being 1989 with PC Flowers & Gifts running the first affiliate program on the Prodigy Network in 1989.
This is the first I’ve heard of the company getting credit, and especially that early.
Back in 2000, I was on a mission to find the origins of affiliate marketing for an article in ClickZ (History of Affiliate Marketing), and everything seemed to point to the adult space as affiliate marketing pioneers.
And as I detailed in my book, Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants, CDNow was the first to launch what we know today as a mainstream affiliate program back in November 1994
I’d love hear more about this PC Flowers & Gifts program if anybody has more details.