The Very Basics of Profiting from Affiliate Programs on the Internet

Affiliate marketing has been and continues to be one of the most profitable Internet-based industries ever. Affiliate are making billions every year on the Internet, quietly promoting other people's products and/or services for profit. What's amazing about affiliate marketing is that it takes little to no startup capital to start a real Internet business, in which any business-driven individual can thrive.

The purpose of this informative guide is to introduce the reader into the world of affiliate marketing from the very basics. As with anything, the best way to learn and flourish in any endeavor is to know the fundamentals first then build upon that with each and every activity you perform.

Affiliate Marketing Defined

Affiliate marketing is the act of promoting another individual's or company's product or service in return for a predetermined percentage of the sale price. There are two main roles in affiliate marketing that make the whole thing go around.

The first role is the merchant. This is the individual or company that has created a unique product or service in which consumers will likely take part. This could be anything from an information product such as an e-book, to a physical product such as an Ipod. On the other hand, the merchant could provide a paid service for the customer in which no physical or digital goods are actually exchanged.

The second role in affiliate marketing is the affiliate. This is an individual who specializes in promoting the merchant's good or service in return for a cut of the profit. Usually with Internet-based affiliate marketing, the affiliate owns a website and/or places ads on venues like popular search engines in order to generate traffic to the merchant's sales/product page.

How It All Works

After a merchant creates a product or service which they believe is marketable, they will often times create an affiliate program. The affiliate program allows affiliates to register and receive a special link often referred to as an "affiliate link" or "affiliate url." The affiliate, as we spoke of above, place that link on websites or paid advertisement networks such as Google Adwords, or MSN Adcenter.

When a potential customer clicks that link, a cookie is dropped on their computer. A cookie will never harm the potential buyer's computer, and is used solely for the purpose of tracking which affiliate referred the buyer to the merchant's website. If the potential buyer makes a purchase and becomes a customer, the affiliate receives a certain percentage of the sale price.

Let's say for example an individual was searching for a guide to learn how to train their dog. They might type something like "dog training tips" or "guide for dog training" into a search engine such as Google. That individual sees an ad along the side of Google that says something like "train your dog in 10 days guaranteed," and they are interested in that so they click it. The person then ends up on a merchant's website, directed there by an affiliate link. That person then buys an informative dog training guide for $50. Since the person was sent to the page through the affiliate's link, the affiliate receives a commission for example of 50% or $25. The merchant also then receives $25 totaling the sale price of $50.

Profitability Factor

There are literally millions of transactions processed through affiliate links every day. Can you make a lot of money with affiliate marketing? Absolutely. Imagine making just 5 sales/day of the dog training guide we spoke of above. That's $125 dollars/day or $3,750/month! It is important to understand also that once a profitable campaign is set up, it needs very little taking care of. This means that the affiliate can run several campaigns simultaneously, all generating income on almost auto-pilot.

Now imagine for a second have just 5 similar campaigns to the one described above. At a certain level this is very realistic for an affiliate to average over 10K each and every month.

Who Can Do It

The great thing about affiliate marketing on the Internet is that just about anyone can do it, even you. Affiliate programs generally speaking are free of charge to join. An affiliate can use free methods of advertising such as article marketing to promote hot affiliate products. Do not expect to make 10K in your first month. If you make $100 you will be doing great. The key is to learn and build upon your successes so that next month $100 may be $300-$400. Eventually you will be making huge monthly gains each and every month until you have the income of your dreams.

How to Get Started Today

Listen, affiliate marketing is not easy, but it's not overly difficult. The best part is it is easy for anyone to get started. Anyone could literally be making money within 15 minutes of reading this informative article. The following is a short quick start guide for anyone to begin building their affiliate business completely free of charge. Follow these steps exactly and you will be on your way.

1. Make a list of things that interest you.

Sit down right now and make a list of all of the things that interest you. It could be video games, riding horses, fitness, anything goes. Try to make a list of at least 20 things.

2. Match your interest to relevant products.

Perhaps you said that video games interest you. Try to think of products or services that merchant may want you to sell for them concerning video games. If you can't think of anything there's an easy way to do this. Simply search for 'video games' in Google. Look at the ads along the right (don't click them). See if you can spot a product or service in those ads.

On that directly pops out is a "video game rental service." This is a called a niche. It just so happens that many top online game rental services pay you $20 or more for every person you send to try their FREE trial. They don't even have to buy anything and you still get paid!

3. Create a blog about your chosen interest (also called a niche).

Blogs are readily available all over the Internet. This is an easy way of creating a website for free if you have no tech experience and are low on money. In your blog make some interesting posts concerning your chosen interest. We'll keep with the video game example. Perhaps you could write a review of a popular video game.

4. Place your affiliate link.

After you've signed up for the affiliate program of the product or service you are promoting, your will receive your affiliate link. As above if you were to write a review of a hot video game you could place at the end something like this:

Don't have this game yet, and don't want to shell out the $60+ for it at the store? Why not try company name's free trial of their online video game rental service. No late fees, return dates or anything holding you back from playing this hot game. Check it out.

Okay, in the above couple sentences you want to place your link key places along the way. For example you could use the terms "free trial," "online video game rental service," and "check it out." It is very important to have an action statement such as "check it out" linked as this will drive more clicks and you will get more sales.

5. Promote your niche blog

There are many ways to get people to your blog. A couple of easy ways are to:

- Post on relevant forums with your blog's link in your signature file
- Post comments on relevant blogs, which allows you to also leave your name and a link
- Write an article and submit it to article directories with your blog's link in the author resource or bio box

6. Sit back and watch the sales role in!

Once you start getting targeted visitor to your blog you will be able to begin seeing people clicking through your affiliate links and making purchases. Guess what then? You start making money. It is really that easy.

This informative article has given you a small insight into the world of an affiliate. It is important to remember, anyone, even you can become a super affiliate that pulls in over 10K or pure sweet profits every month. All it takes is determination and most of all, action.