An affiliate comparison website is a website that compares financial products, such as credit cards, loans and insurance, in articles, and earns a commission when a reader buys one through its link. "Affiliate" means that the site has an agreement with the bank or insurer to send it customers, in return for a fee. Such a site is also called an affiliate marketing site.
The reader pays nothing to the site. The bank or the insurer pays it, but only when a reader actually applies and is approved. So the site earns from its articles, not from ads alone.
Say a young professional in Indore searches "best credit card for fuel". The top result is an article that compares five fuel credit cards. It shows each card's annual fee, its fuel surcharge waiver and its reward points, in a table. Beside each card is an "Apply now" button.
He clicks the button for one card. The button is a tracking link. It carries a code that identifies the site, so that the bank knows where he came from. He fills in the bank's application form. A week later, the bank approves the card. The bank's records now show that this approved customer came through the site, so the bank pays the site a fixed commission for that card. Working out which website or ad led to a sale is called marketing attribution.
Attribution is the hard part of this business. The reader may click the link today and apply three days later on another device. The bank and the site must agree on which applications count. Tracking that once used third-party cookies is now harder, because browsers block them. So many sites now pass the tracking code directly to the bank's systems instead.
The site gets most of its readers from search engines. So it writes an article for each question that people search, such as "best home loan for women" or "term insurance for smokers". This makes it depend on search. When a search engine answers the question itself, with an AI summary, fewer readers click through. This is called zero-click search.
How is it different from an insurance comparison marketplace? A marketplace is itself a licensed broker. You buy the policy on its website, and it often has a call centre that helps you choose. An affiliate site only writes the comparison and sends you to the bank or to an instant personal loan app to apply. In India, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) expects a site to tell readers clearly when it is paid for a recommendation.