How much reliable is affiliate marketing?

There are few best and reliable affiliate marketing websites available (mentioned below) around and they set different rules time to time. At the same time, all affiliate platforms are not reliable for sure. If you got approval and affiliate link from them (listed one) then you can share it with your family members or friends or online etc.

Amazon Associates
eBay Partners
Shopify Affiliate Program
Flipkart
BigRock
MakeMyTrip etc.

The affiliate link is useful for those who really buy the goods from online as preference. Many ignore such affiliate link as they are not interested to buy anything online and they always prefer offline shopping in case if they needed to by anything in realtime.

With regards to your query, if someone visited their website through your referral link to buy any product online even after certain gap, the IP and other tracking history will show about your link and they will consider the first visit reference to review and consider for commission payout. It will take time to review and settle the commission. It won't happen within a month for sure.

There are many Affiliate marketing platforms. But all are never reliable. You should go to reliable platforms only. The following are some of the reliable platforms for the same.
1. ShareASale
2. Awin
3. Amazon Associates
4. CJ Affiliate
5. Rakuten Marketing
6. Avangate Affiliate Network
7. ClickBank
8. FlexOffers
9. Peerfly
10. Walmart Affiliates.
As long as the link sent by you is with the receiver and if he uses it when he opened for the second time or 3rd time also there is no problem. You will get the commission as per the agreement you has with the company. The company will look into the IP address and also track through which link they go the order and then pay as per the link. There may be some delay. But you will receive it. But you should select a reliable platform.

Affiliates are new Avenue of earnings for many people. Affiliate works best in bringing sales for e-commerce sites and many other online portals.

Affiliates are reliable and work for many but you must be very choosy in selecting the best affiliate programs that will work for you.

As of now Amazon affiliate program is best. They not only provide good tracking information but alao are prompt in payment.

Flipkart is also good in tracking sales but very poor in payment. They hold payment for months without providing any reason.

You may find a lot of YouTube videos promising or telling you that you can earn millions through affiliate but that is not the case. Don't fall trap to such videos. Celebs and influencers who have good fan following are able to make good affiliate commission if they promote a product but the same is not possible for a beginner.

There is drawback in affiliate marketing that the e-commerce sites sometimes cancel the commission or even remove the tracked sales without reason leaving you high and dry. It takes a lot of effort to conclude a sale but you are always at the mercy of these portals.

Never depend on them as you primary source of income, just keep it as a side kick.

Members have already named tbe affiliates available and there are others which you can search on Google.

You must try to choose affiliate in which you are comfortable or have something related to your field of work only as that will make it easier for you to convert sales.
There are affiliate in financial products, travel packages, clothing, electronics, server and domain sale, e-commerce, etc.

If you belong to particular category then the same will be easier for you to work in.

There are already professionals and companies that are already working in this field for long and spend a huge amount to capture customers by offering them cashback, app, etc and for you to entice customer and convert a sale will be a hard job. Most sales will come from people known to you whom you will request to buy their product through link you shared etc., but the same is not possible on long run.

Do your homework before committing your time to affiliate income.

Affiliate marketing can be trusted safety because of prevalence of high competition of the different sites. In case, it does not maintain reliability, it will loose its affiliation from the side of visitors. The following points would be helpful in being a decent marketing affiliate-
1) You will have to develop at least a basic understanding of some of the important tools such as Word Press websites, producing high quality research niches and keywords, websites usability, interpretation skills etc. Earnings would not be difficult even if you are in the learning these tools but to be successful in this area, you will need to acquire sufficient experience in the different tools.
2) Numerous sites can be initiated if you understand the basics of the tools being used by you. In that way, to run the sites it would not consume much of your time.
3) It would take several months to understand the real ground of the affiliate marketing. You will have to devote to considerable timing each week in order to produce 2-3 pieces of content apart from answering emails, comments etc.
4) Ensure that you are producing 2-3 pieces of high quality content per week. Producing quantity alone would not fetch you success.
Patience is definitely needed to earn money substantially in the affiliate marketing.

Let me try to explain the whole gamut of affiliate marketing and its reliability in a simple way.
Affiliate marketing is a passive source of earning money and the basic condition which should be fulfilled is that some surfer or visitor should click on your affiliate link in any site or your own site or your own blog or your own You Tube channel and make a purchase from the online store to which that link is corresponding and then only you are entitled for a commission from the seller on that particular purchase by the visitor. Now, today, as many people are already in the fray so there are ample of affiliate links popping here and there and the chances of your particular link to be used for a buy action diminishes drastically until the traffic to your place is very high. The probability of that being used will be less due to so many links floating in the virtual space. But it is not a discouraging thing for a beginner because in the business environment wherever one goes competition will be definitely there. So, with some sustained work of placing links of many reputed online stores, names of which are already mentioned by other members in their answers, in different sites or in your own sites would help to some extent.
Some sites allow the authors and writers to place the links of reputed online stores like Amazon within the author's content and those writers who have a big viewership get advantages of that link because generally it is related to the topic of the article and due to that correlation the reader is tempted to buy the said item. For example in an article on hiking or trekking, a shoe advertisement link fits well. So, that is one aspect that can be seen when we are putting affiliate links in some places whether they somehow match with the context of the content or not. Generally at random links will not attract people much.
Please note that in affiliate marketing what you are doing is that you are promoting or marketing someone's product and if you get success in getting that item sold through your marketing skills and these affiliate links then only you are entitled for a commission. You can even pass on a part of the commission to the buyer and accordingly your link should elaborate and indicate that very precisely.
One interesting thing is that you can even promote your own product. Affiliate marketing can be used for the promotion of ones own product and services also. This is a good tool if used in the proper business oriented ways.
When you join the affiliate program of some big online store then you can do affiliate marketing for as many products as you wish and depending on the actual utilisations of those links by the visitors and surfers the amount of commission would be calculated.
The last thing that could help a lot is that there are already many reputed affiliate networks in the internet through which it is easy to build up an affiliate marketing program and reap its benefits as many sellers also manage their affiliate programs on these coordination platforms.
You Tubers and Bloggers generally place affiliate links in their videos or blogs and depending upon their viewership there could be some clicks on those links maturing in the sale of the items at the seller's end who would pass on the commission to the affiliate. If the item is returned by the buyer then commission will also be deducted from the account of the affiliate. That is why the payment of these commissions generally takes a long time.
Reputed online sellers or stores are reliable as far as the payment of commission is concerned.