With affiliate marketing it's your goal to recommend a website to your online visitors. If they indeed buy the promoted service or product then you receive a commission of that sale. The interest for merchant is that he has made another sale that he wouldn't have made if you hadn't sent your visitors to his site, and you as an affiliate are happy because receive a commission of the sale, without having to worry about product creation, inventory etc.
In the case that you have an existing website already set up and running, you just have to add the necessary links. Another option would be to specifically build a new site just to promote a particular product or service. You only have to make more money than it takes to build or run the site.
What are the payment options?
The way in which you are paid completely depends upon how the merchant has set up his affiliate system. Some merchants have completely built their own affiliate program. Others use Clickbank or Commission Junction. Anyway, they're equipped with special types of software that assigns each affiliate marketer a special link that's used in promoting the product. All this software does is to track the sales of every marketer. The commissions are periodically paid by the merchant. PayPal is often used for payment or another system.
Choice of products or services to promote
This can be really tough as there are gazillions of products sold online and on the outside, they usually all look pretty and shining. These are the two main factors with the biggest influence on earnings:
1. the size of the commission you earn
2. how well the product or service sells
I don't have to tell you that the selection of which program you will promote is vital and that you need to devote a lot of attention to it.
You can compare this choice to picking stocks to invest in. One of the basic rules in investing in the stock market is that you should always entirely comprehend what the company is doing. It's important that you are familiar with the products or service. Ideally, you have personally used the product or service yourself and you can be a living testimonial of the quality of the company's products. Besides, how are you going to write a review anyway? It will also ease the task of writing ads or emails to your list.
Most of us are already promoting products to our friends and relatives, even if the owner of the product doesn't pay you a dime. Think of a really good restaurant you went to or a really cool movie you've seen. So why then should you promote products online that you'll feel uncomfortable recommending to your family and friends if they would ask you about it? Especially when the choice of products is so overwhelming.
Another interesting factor is if the programs offers tools to ease the life of their affiliates when they are promoting. What we mean by that are things like banners, text links, and of course graphics, in short: things that you can directly put on your web site. Off course you're not obliged to use them; you can also model your own to it.
Last but not least there are the commission rates. My advice would be to look for affiliate programs with commission rates of minimum 50%. If possible, give preference to programs that pay commission on multiple levels. What does this mean? Suppose that someone buys the product through your link and this person is so enthusiastic about the product, that he decides to become an affiliate himself. If this person now makes a sale, you are still earning a commission on this sale. In the long term, this can make a huge difference.
About the Author:
Fact: 90% of all affiliates never make money. Are you sick and tired of working hard and earning zero $? Visit my blog and Download Affiliate Marketing Pitfalls to Avoid and don't be another looser any more! It's FREE so what have you got to loose?
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