What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when you promote another person's product or service to the public and receive commission for each customer that you bring to them that converts into a sale. Affiliate marketing once mastered is a simple way of earning money and is one of the easiest online methods to get started. Many people make the mistake of thinking that all they need to do is pick a product, set up a website and watch the money roll in. Wrong - do this and you are guaranteed to fail! There are a lot of factors linked to it that will either make your campaign successful or a failure.

Why become an affiliate?

Being an affiliate is a stress free way to make money online, you see a product you'd like to promote and you promote it, if you get bored of that product you can drop it and pick up another one to promote, no explanations needed. Your one role is to focus on getting customers to convert into buyers in which you pocket the commissions!

Where to find affiliate programs?

You can find programs directly with the company by visiting their website and seeing if they have a scheme or by going through a company such as Amazon, ClickBank, Commission Junction, Rapbank etc. these act as vendors to all businesses who want to sell their products/services, each has a different payment scheme so this may be a factor when choosing who to go with. The 2nd option is the easiest as you can browse on the vendors' website comparing what each company is offering. Remember that it is free to join an affiliate program so if you are asked for money walk away and continue on your search.

Picking your affiliate program.

As stated before there are thousands of companies all wanting people to jump on board

and promote their products/services, as you are new to being an affiliate a top tip is to promote something that interests you and not just go for something that pays big bucks. If you pick something that you have no interest in you are going to struggle to write about it, promote it and generally stay motivated.

Once you have decided what niche to focus on you need to pick a few products and look at what they offer their affiliate. There are various types of affiliate programs; pay per sale, pay per lead, recurring pay etc. each will explain what you will get when you convert. See what tools they provide for affiliates, a company offering; sales emails, banners, widgets etc. means they have spent time on their campaign and want their product to be a success.

Now spend time browsing the websites and what they are offering the customer, put yourself in the customer's shoes, if a website doesn't look good or pull you in then it may do the exact same thing for them. Once you have joined a program and picked a product you are ready for the next stage.