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What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing basically means selling other people’s products for a commission online.  Affiliate marketing is similar to offline sales where sales people earn a commission for selling a product; the difference is that all selling is conducted online. 

As an affiliate marketer you will research and find products to promote on your website.  Each time you make a sale through your affiliate link you will earn a portion of that sale.  The commissions can vary from as low as 7% to a generous 50%. 

The sales are tracked through your unique affiliate ID which is assigned to you at the time you sign up for a specific affiliate program.  Your unique affiliate ID is tracked and each time a sale is made through your link it is recorded.   A good affiliate program will give you plenty of tools for promoting their products as well as a comprehensive member’s area where you can track your affiliate sales and commissions.

Affiliate marketing is a good way to get started online.  You can be set up and ready to go within a few days and there is no need to spend any time creating your own products or purchasing inventory.  You are simply promoting other people’s products, which means the vendor is actually responsible for order fulfilment, customer service and anything else related to the sale – you simply refer the sale to them and get paid for doing so.

For example if you have a love of cooking, you can create a website around cooking related topics and include tips, recipes, and reviews of all your favorite cooking gadgets.  You can then find affiliate programs online and promote some of those products on your website.  You can find programs by doing a search under your chosen topic such as “cooking” and adding the words “affiliate program” to that term.
You can also find affiliate programs at places like CJ.com.

Although affiliate marketing is an easy way to get started online, there is a little more to it than just throwing up a few links and banners and waiting for the affiliate check to arrive.  A good affiliate marketer knows it takes time and effort to make sales. 

A good way to do this is by providing quality information on your website and only linking to affiliate products where appropriate.  Another good tip is to review the products you promote so that you can accurately describe all the features - good and bad.  Your customers will appreciate honest feedback and will be more likely to buy from you if you give them good quality information and honest reviews.