Affiliate Marketing Programs are one of the most popular ways to earn money online, but not many persons really understand what affiliate marketing is. Simply put, affiliate marketing is the sharing of revenue between a website owner and a company or individual who sells products and services online. The website owner either sells products for or directs buyers to the merchant’s website. In so doing the website owner earns a percentage of profits from the merchant.

There are three main types of affiliate marketing programs, namely:

1. Pay Per Click (PPC)

Each time a website user clicks on the merchant’s link on an affiliate’s website, the website owner earns. The earnings per click are decided between the merchant and the website owner.

2. Pay Per Lead

A commission is paid to the website owner each time a customer or potential customer signs up for the merchant’s products or services based on the advertisement (link) on the website of the affiliate.

3. Pay Per Sale

The website owner earns a commission every time a sale is made because of the advertisement on the website.

Best Affiliate Marketing Programs

There are many affiliate programs, many of which are quite successful. Nonetheless there are some than are consistently better than others. Some of those that are almost always named in any top ten list of best affiliate marketing programs are:

1. Amazon.com (Amazon Associates)

A consistent performer, affiliates with Amazon generally see their greatest returns leading up to holidays. Affiliates can easily choose between two fee structures with Amazon Associates. The vast array of products for sale make AA an amazing option.

2. MarketHealth.com

This is reportedly the largest affiliate market program targeting the beauty and health products market online. The company is also listed among the highest paying affiliate marketers when it comes to commissions.

3. Commission Junction

One of the old-timers in the business, CJ despite some earlier problems with class action suits continues to deliver. They also work with new affiliates to get started so as to build their business.

4. Google Adsense

This program enables website owners to show ads targeting a specific niche on their sites. Each time a website visitor clicks on one of the ads, money is earned. In addition, users on the website can also search online using Google which also enables the website owner to earn.

5. eBay

eBay’s affiliate marketing program was recently overhauled, but the ability to earn from this affiliate program has not lessened. You can generate income by selling products or you can also be paid for new accounts.

6. Panda Software

Available through Commission Junction, this is one of the biggest anti-virus affiliate programs available.

7. Revenue Wire

Revenue Wire is in the business of digital products that sell. They are said to pay one of the highest commissions on their Pay-Per-Sale model. The good thing is the products they list are goods that people really need and tend to buy.

8. Fast Click

This company is listed among the top affiliates because of their ad service technology. Many beginning affiliate marketers start off with them because of the easy to use features and support.

9. Hydra Network

One of the selling points of Hydra, is the ready availability of support if needed. This support includes tips on how to improve earnings. In addition, they provide frequent updates to affiliates about which merchants are performing best.

10. PepperJam

While getting mixed reviews, this program appears frequently enough in top ten listings to be included here. It is easy to join and works well for those willing to put in the work needed in the beginning.

Not everyone may agree with all the names on the list, however, these are the names that frequently make the grade. It is important to know as well, that some programs may be great at one point and six months later begin to do badly.

While looking for affiliate marketing opportunities online, it is also important to avoid scams. The caveat that if it seems too good to be true it probably is, is best observed when it comes to affiliate marketing.

The beauty of Google affiliate marketing is its simplicity. In its most elemental application an individual can earn marketing dollars for simply agreeing to sidebar ads on a personal web or group site. This process is easily accessible as it is offered as an option whilst developing the page.

For those wanting to earn a bigger buck it’s a little more complicated, but not much. Anyone with a functioning URL and valid account information can apply to be a Google affiliate, either as a publisher, someone with a site to offer, or as an advertiser, someone with something to advertise.

Whether you are a publisher or an advertiser, the concept is really easy to understand, publishers take on advertisers; site visitors click on links and, if the visitor buys a product or service the publisher gets a commission.

What is Google Affiliate Marketing?

• It is a means of advertising products or services using banners or links on appropriate websites. The advertisers in turn pay a commission for every hit, sign-up or sale they receive directed from the site.
• It is an opportunity for site publishers to generate, drive and direct visitor traffic for profit.
• It is also an opportunity to create relationships between advertisers and publishers for mutual benefit.

How much will I make?

How much a site makes is dependant on a number of variables; how many ads the site advertises and the commission rates of the advertisers on your site. There is no cost or obligation in being a marketer/publisher so a little experimentation with the number of ads, types of ads and specific advertisers will help to tweak marketing to suit individual needs.

Publishers can choose which advertisers can post on their site which gives an element of financial risk control. The Google affiliate marketing network is non-proprietary, so publishers can mix and match combining other network advertisers with Google advertisers.

What sorts of advertisers/publishers should I look for?

The advertiser publisher relationship is a two way street. While you can accept or decline advertisers, they in turn can accept or decline your offer. Publishers with proven results for existing advertisers will attract the interest of the more lucrative advertising markets. For both party’s it makes sense to seek out compatible relationships. An arts store advertiser for example, will have greatest success and will sit appropriately on a site dedicated to artists.

Some advertisers have easy update banners’ meaning current advertising is being promoted all the time. This can help to keep the advertising and the site looking fresh.

Is Google Affiliate Marketing right for me?

Considerations when deciding if this network is right for you are:

• The sheer size of Google makes it the largest network available, the market audience is huge.
• A drawback may be loss of personal service in favour of size.
• Primarily Google connects advertisers with publishers; tools for tracking and reporting and an international audience for a product or service.
• There is no cost to the advertiser unless a conversion, or sale, is completed. That means no sales carry no costs.

Although the Google Affiliate Network has FAQ pages and extensive information on site, it does not provide a contact option for one to one communication and this goes back to the personal service issue. Before considering becoming an affiliate, one should perhaps think about how much homework they want to do to understand the program and the possible frustrations if all does not go according to plan.

Also, it pays to remember this is a working relationship. Although Google do some perfunctory inquiries into the legitimacy of both the advertiser and publisher, there is always a slight chance for the publisher that they will risk reputation on a shady product and for the advertiser; the possibility the publisher will find dodgy ways to fake sales. The probability is pretty minimal though and the benefits for everyone apparently far outweigh the risks.

Clickbank Affiliate Marketing is one of the most used affiliate marketing based advertising companies on the internet. Taken right from their slogan, you can “make money promoting the web’s best digital products.” An internet webmaster or blog publisher just signs up for their service, adds their code to a beneficial section of their website, and begins to send traffic to products offered through Clickbank in hopes that some of that traffic will turn into sale conversions. The webmaster does not get paid for leads, but he or she will get a comparable amount of the profits in exchange for the lead.

One may wonder how Clickbank can offer this and give such high amounts of a profit away. It’s very simple actually; Clickbank is a third-party affiliate network through which some of the best digital product companies on the internet can sell their products. They connect high dollar retailers and e-commerce corporations to experienced webmasters who are good at sending traffic to their affiliates. With the high expected sale conversions from thousands of webmasters, these companies are happy to turn over a high portion of the proceeds of a sale to Clickbank, who, in turn, generously pays the webmasters for the use of their web space and the leads in the form of a percentage of the profits for merchandise their leads purchase.  Clickbank claims that a webmaster may receive up to 75% of the proceeds of a sale that was made from his or her lead.

Webmasters may receive financial compensation from several sale opportunities: proceeds from a sale and recurring revenue from subscription products, with a total of 10,000 products that a webmaster can choose to promote and earn from. Clickbank believes their company is superior to other affiliate programs because: they have a single page order form for visitors to order from, real time stats with an array of success monitoring tools and options, and weekly payouts with an option of direct deposit. Considering how much the affiliate marketing world has grown so user friendly, Clickbank ensures that they take care of all the tracking, accounting, and payouts. A webmaster simply signs up, chooses the products he or she believes the visitors to his or her site will be the most interested in, and then incorporates their hoplinks into his or her advertising or marketing campaigns.

As determined by the vendor of the product, a webmaster can earn anywhere from 1% to 75% commission on a sale, which is unfortunately not negotiable, but is stated prior to the webmaster adding the product to his or her website. The minimum commission on a single sale is $.25, and the maximum is $100.00. Any recurring subscription products will be credited to a webmaster after each successful rebill and credits will stop if the product is canceled. The most important thing for a webmaster to remember is that he or she has an important impact on the commission that can be earned: choosing the products his or her website or blog promotes. A webmaster should always promote the products that best suit the demographic of his or her site.

There are hundreds of affiliate marketing companies on the internet, and it is always great for a webmaster to diversify his interest. Despite a few small, expected negative aspects of its program, Clickbank is one of the most effective affiliate networks for the most webmasters. This is simply due to the relatively high payouts as opposed to competing affiliate programs and vast array of products. Webmasters can go to www.clickbank.com to learn more and to sign up to start earning money.

eBay affiliate marketing, what is it?

eBay is the largest online auction house and marketplace in the world with almost 300 million registered users worldwide. You may have bought and sold items on eBay, but have you heard about EBay’s Affiliate Marketing program?

You are paid just for sending customers to eBay, how cool is that? The eBay affiliate marketing program allows the affiliate to receive a commission on sales made to traffic that the affiliate has driven to eBay’s site. Sometimes that sale is a “joining fee” or it may be a particular item that was bought. The eBay affiliate receives a commission each month on all sales that they help generate. All you need to do is direct traffic to eBay and pick up the check.

eBay has some of the most generous affiliate commissions on the web and how much you earn depends on how much quality traffic you drive every month – the more you drive, the more you earn. The EBay affiliate marketing program is a great opportunity for earning money.

How to get good commissions

There are two ways to create a good monthly income, by promoting high-end products or by promoting high demand items. There will obviously not be as much commission on a $10 item as there is on a $1000 item but you may be able to make better commission from promoting a lower end product that people are likely to buy than one possible high-end sale. The strategy is your choice.

How to drive traffic to eBay

Look through eBay’s categories for ideas on a niche market. The niche should be something that you know about or have an interest in. Once you have found your niche,

To drive traffic to eBay, you will need to have a web site or a blog. Setting up a website can be done very quickly using an online webhost. They are very inexpensive and your very first commission will cover the cost.

If you have a blog, you may want to consider adding an RSS feed generator. The RSS Feed Generator is a way that eBay affiliates can generate RSS feeds showing eBay content dynamic and specifically to your niche. It also includes track-able links to items.

Another option is to use an API (Application Programming Interface) that accesses eBay’s listings database. API’s are very effective because they let you show lists of items in your niche as if you have an online store.

Whether you have a blog or a website, you will need to know your niche subject. Knowledge of your subject will let you create articles that will drive traffic to your site. Your site will pre-sell the product and make your visitor want to click through to eBay and ultimately buy the product.

Calculating traffic

When you register to be an eBay affiliate, you will get a registration number. That number is incorporated into your links to eBay. EBay has special tracking tools built into all of their applications and they know when a connection is made via your website or blog and the purchases that were made because of that connection.

Getting Paid

Every month, usually around the middle of the month, you will receive payment for the previous month’s sales. Imagine getting a check every month just for having links on your blog or website.

If you are looking for ways to generate extra income, then eBay affiliate marketing is the way to go.

For years you’ve patiently suffered sales-attacks through the mail services. Now you are quietly deleting myriads more from your e-mail. Will it never end?

No. Not as long as the world functions as it is.

But perhaps you could (or even should) read some of these attacks and see if there is something for you there—maybe even a small home business (not overnight riches—run the other way when you see those promises!).

Even major, legitimate businesses are offering work opportunities for you. For example, American Express, Visa, and MasterCard all offer affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are where you advertise for another company—usually on a Web site—and the viewer goes from your site to one owned by the bank or whoever is originating the product. When the viewer buys something or, in this case, signs up for a credit card and is approved, you receive a commission.

Credit card affiliate programs offer some of the highest commissions around. In some cases you even get paid if you get someone else to sign up as an affiliate. On a current American Express site, for example, you can earn $25 for signing up a merchant, from $25 to $200 when you get someone to sign up for a credit card who is subsequently approved, and up to $250 for the sale of a gift card.

Some programs give you points for every visitor you steer to their Web site. When you have accumulated enough points, they are converted to cash.

Another type of “points program” is when you receive points for everyone you send to the site who fills out an open form for newsletters or sends in an inquiry.

American Express does not manage their affiliate program. Nor do Visa, MasterCard, or most of the banks that issue them. Instead they have an “Affiliate Partner” who is just another affiliate marketer that is one step above what you would be, and who will earn a bit for every dollar you earn.

If you have ever been in an MLM program, the people who seem to always make money are not those that promote the products of the program, but rather those who have found (or made) sales helps for the MLMers, items that are most helpful with the MLM product (such as elastic bands to hold MLM magnets on various body parts), training programs, and so forth. The “Affiliate Partners” just were at the right place at the right time with the right mindset to take advantage of these credit card companies’ need to advertise and sell more cards. Most have added these other kinds of items to help you succeed. And, in time, you can become one of them if you choose.

These Affiliate Partners also offer a variety of helps to you, the marketer: web sites; help in finding credit card affiliate programs, as well as finding and maintaining customers; and a variety of aids for building your business. In fact, if you are a novice and willing to do what you learn, many of these companies will lead you to success. Obviously, how hard you work will have the biggest impact on your success or lack of it.

However, as in any business, you need to be on the alert for charlatans, for they are in every facet of Internet marketing. If you find a link to an Affiliate Partner from the main site of the credit card issuer, as you can see on the American Express’ affiliate program page, you should be safe going with them (just be sure it isn’t a Google ad—those contain both legitimate and charlatan sites, so you will have to use more caution).

Some of the sites of credit card affiliates have made very interesting businesses out of it: helping the viewer pick out the best credit card for their needs—from companies offering cards to those with a poor credit rating, cards that offer instant approval, cards with the lowest APR, those with no annual fee, those that have frequent flyer programs, and so on.

Once you find an Affiliate Partner you want to work with, if you have chosen well they will help you pretty much step-by-step to get started and keep going. You can help yourself by carefully researching not only these Partner sites, but also the sites of other affiliates. You can usually recognize them by the fact that they offer information about several different credit card companies. The sites are usually filled with information about credit cards, or even just about credit in general, as well as credit card companies. And, of course, they will offer links to various credit card application forms.

Tips for finding the right credit card affiliate marketing program to join:

• It should be free for you to join, even though they may have some features that have to be purchased, such as a Web site URL.
• For either the beginner or for a very busy person, an automated program can be most helpful.
• You should have a number of credit card companies to choose from so you can sell what you feel most comfortable promoting.
• If the company does not offer you a Web site, they should at least offer tracking for your site(s). This will help you manage your business, especially if you branch out into more than one site.
• Be sure to compare commissions between different Partners. Some keep more for themselves than others do.
• The more inexperienced you are, the more help you want available to you.
• Check those you are unsure of in the Ripoff Report (http://www.ripoffreport.com/—be patient, it’s probably the slowest-loading site on the Web). If there are complaints against them, carefully check the quantity, recent frequency, and nature of the complaints. Just because there are complaints does not necessarily mean the Partner is not trustworthy (even General Electric has complaints lodged against it). You need to analyze what is there and see if it is a company you choose to trust or not.

A quick browse on the Internet turned up the following sites to help you get started. Please note that neither the author nor this site has checked them out—they are simply offered as a starting place for your own research. All of them offer affiliate programs, but some of them are also sites that can give you ideas for your own business approach—and some of them offer more affiliate programs than just credit cards.

Happy hunting—or should we say, happy finding!

http://www.credit-land.com/

http://www.capitalone.com/affiliate/

http://www.cardoffers.com/

http://www.ncsreporting.com/

http://www.linkshare.com/

http://www.nativestar.org/

http://www.sunspotweb.com/

http://www.sitemighty.com/

http://www.nationwidecardservices.com/

http://www.prepaidcardaffiliate.com/

http://www.afflixcc.com/

http://www.cashflowfromcreditcards.com/

Have you chosen your own affiliate program and are ready to start marketing your affiliate program on the internet? As with any affiliate program, traffic is the key to landing those clicks or sales you are looking for, but they might not always come as quick and easy as you thought. If you are interested in learning some great tips on affiliate internet marketing, then please read this entire article for great free information.

Marketing Tips For Affiliate Programs

Marketing an internet affiliate program is like driving a car: there is a correct and and incorrect way to do it. Get it wrong and the gears will grind, the engine will rake and you will end up back at the garage quicker than you left. Get it right and you can have years of trouble free pleasure.

The first thing to do is submit your internet affiliate to the major search engines such a Google and Findwhat. There are hundreds of sites out there who offer search engine submission services. Many of these companies offer a ‘free’ and ‘paid’ service. The paid service sends your website info to hundreds or thousands of search engines for a monthly or yearly fee. The free service sends your site’s info to ten or so of the biggest and best search engines out there including Google. It may take several weeks for your site to appear in the relevant search engine listings.

The next thing to do is to submit your internet affiliate information to relevant free web directories. If you own a dating affiliate, look for online dating directories. If you own a bookstore affiliate, look for online bookstore directories. Use the directory’s automatic submission tool to submit your site’s info to their directory. Again this could take time. Unless you have deep pockets, don’t buy a paid directory listing in the Yahoo Directory. The cost of listing is high and the returns are not worth it.

The best, and most cost effective, means of marketing any internet affiliate is to use a Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine service such as Google Adwords, Overture, Go Click etc. If you look down the right hand side of any Google search page you will see several listed ads for sites relevant by keyword to the search just made. The ads may also appear above the normal search listings on other PPC search engines.

These are the advertised listings, advertised through Google Adwords or Overture etc. Different PPC search engines cost different amounts to set up, require different amounts of cash to be placed in your balance to keep your account active and are aimed at different markets. Adwords, for example, is free to set up, costs a minimum of 5 cents per click to run, and you are billed automatically at the end of the month . Overture costs $50 to set up, requires a minimum of 10 cents per click and at least needs $25 to be in your account to keep it going.

Most PPc search engines work identically. You set up an account, write an ad, select your keywords which will bring up your ad and set the maximum cost per click for each keyword. The higher your minimum cost per click the higher up the search rankings your ad will be and the more click-thrus your ad will receive.

Bidding for keywords can be an expensive and cut throat business, especially when bidding on highly popular ones such as ‘cars,’ ‘mortgages’ or ‘dating.’ Unless you have bottomless pockets its best to use your head. Bid lower on these high cost words and bid also on alternative keywords such as ‘lonely hearts dating.’ Keep a close eye on your listings, especially the click-thru rate and the cost that your campaign is accruing. You might have to adjust your keyword costs to ensure a productive campaign. You can pause or end a campaign at any time, which almost instantly takes your ad out of the listings.

Don’t waste your money and energy advertising with the hundreds of smaller PPC search engines out there. Many of these smaller sites offer free sign up and you can bid on keywords from 1 cents per click. Some even post money into your balance on joining. The amount of traffic these search engines receive is virtually non-existent and it could take you literally years to use up your click balance. If a PPC search engine is not listed in the top ten avoid it! How do you find out? Easy! Type ‘top ten PPC search engines’ into Google.

If you own an affiliate website that looks identical to the site from which you took out that affiliate, it may be worth checking with the original site itself because some don’t like you advertising your affiliate as if it is the real thing itself. You can check to see if you are a clone affiliate by looking at the address bar at the top of the your affiliate homepage. If you are a clone bookstore affiliate you will normally see something like: www.bookstoreaffilaites.com/123. That 123 at the end contains your affiliate number. In some cases you may have to include the word ‘Affiliate’ somewhere in your ad copy.

In this era of dynamic advertising and marketing, many people are turning to more unusual methods to advertise there affiliate. Here are a few more original ways that have proved a success: print and hand out business cards, take out free or cheap classified ads, make posts on forums relevant to your affiliate and, make sure your website address or affiliate is listed in your profile.

Whatever you do, don’t use any kind of spam or email sending service. These are not only illegal but they are likely to end up with disgruntled spam receivers complaining to your ISP and getting you kicked out. Avoid too these site who offer to send your advertisement to 30 million email addresses for $10. If it sounds too good to be true it is!

Perhaps the biggest trend in internet marketing is that it is not just internet marketers, or online web companies that are using internet marketing.  Companies in virtually every industry are finding tools and techniques on the web that can increase their companies overall performance.  Internet sales are increasing at nearly 25 percent per year.  Currently, the internet accounts for six percent of all retail sales, which is about double what it was in 2006.

As internet business and internet marketing competition heats up, keeping up with the best trends and practices offered is essential to marketing success.  While there are almost limitless developments all the time in internet marketing, we will focus on a few of the hottest internet marketing trends for discussion, including:  Social media, Blogging, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Social Media

Social media is without a doubt one of the greatest revelations on the web in the last couple years.  Social media sites are essentially sites that offer users a combination of media in some form, and social networking opportunities.  Marketers use social media sites for a variety of internet marketing purposes.  The breadth of social media is great.  Some sites, such as Digg.com and Propeller.com, offer users a chance to post articles or other media content from the web, and build a friend network or join groups with other users.  Many internet marketers publish their own articles and submit them to social media for great exposure.  Building networks helps the articles spread faster and gain more recognition through the sites.

There are many other types of social media as well.  Twitter is a popular site where people and businesses can post brief updates and news bits for “followers”.  Facebook and MySpace have been popular social sites common to younger crowds, but many internet marketers are turning to these sites to help build grassroots marketing campaigns.

Blogging

Blogging initially started as a concept centered on e-diary updates for stay-at-home moms and others who wanted to use the web to give life updates.  However, blogging has become common practice in internet marketing.  Many companies use blogs to generate traffic for their website.  Blogs allow companies deriving business both on and offline to regularly update consumers and customers.  Additionally, many marketers use article marketing to help drive traffic and use their blog to publish articles.  This practice is often tied to search engine optimization.

Search Engine Optimization

It has always been a goal of internet sites to do well in search engines.  However, search engine optimization, or SEO, has become somewhat of a marketing science.  Many books and sites have now been developed to help teach other webmasters how to build search engine-friendly websites.  The initial goal of Google, Yahoo, and other popular search engines was to provide the most relevant content to search users.  After all, these companies are financed largely by advertising on their sites and want users to return.

With the competition increasing for the online visitor, or customer, aggressive search engine positioning practices have evolved.  Many sites have engaged in somewhat manipulative practices to attain higher positions for their sites, sometimes at the expense of search users.  Google and others always attempt to provide the most organically relevant searches to users.  However, savvy internet marketing must consider popular SEO strategies that include both on-page SEO (setting up web pages that are relevant) and off-page SEO (linking).  The key is to study and learn the search engine friendly tools while protecting against unethical and penalized practices.  In the long-term, search engine traffic is the ideal driver of a site as the alternative is costly pay-per-click or other advertising methods.

Affiliate marketing is currently one of the most popular—maybe the most popular—way for the average person (or anyone else) to earn money through the Internet. It is a way for merchants/publishers/manufacturers to create an online network of sellers/bloggers/etc. (affiliates) to advertise and promote their goods on a commission (pay-for-performance) basis. The affiliate displays links or banners on its Website (or blog or e-mails) and receives a commission for any sales that are generated—sometimes even just for someone clicking on the merchant’s site!

So just how does “affiliate marketing” work?

To answer that, let’s first look at regular marketing through stores. A company manufactures a product—a Widget. They may or may not advertise to the general public. The Widgeting Company can sell the Widget to either a wholesaler (which also may or may not advertise to the general public), or directly to a store. The store definitely advertises directly to the public.

At each of these levels, the price for the Widget changes. The business at each level earns the difference between their cost and what they charge their customer. Simple Business 101.

Now the Widgeting Company, the wholesaler, and the store all hire salespeople to sell the product. Sometimes they will simply pay the salesperson a salary; sometimes they will pay a commission of a certain percentage of the price at which they sell the Widget to their customer.

That is the “first step” towards affiliate marketing.

The next step towards affiliate marketing goes as follows: The Widgeting Company decides that they want to reach a larger market, but they simply can’t pay much more to advertise than they already are. And they don’t have a waiting list of wholesalers or stores just dying to sell Widgets! So they look to the Internet. The Widgeting Company either already has or begins their own Website to recruit businesses (even those that are only online) to sell Widgets for them. They begin a drop ship program where these businesses advertise the Widgets, sell them and take the money for the sales. The businesses then contact the Widgeting Company, give them the customer’s information and order, send the Widgeting Company the money for the Widgets’ wholesale price (and pocket the difference). The Widgeting Company then ships the Widgets directly to the customer.

This is a great step. But it has a couple of limitations. First, nowadays products are often not physical products, such as e-books, and this is a cumbersome way to sell them. Second, in order for a store or Website to have a complete product line they would have to be taking orders for products from a multitude of manufacturers. It’s just too much bother.

Ta daaa—enter affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is done only through the Internet—no physical stores. It is similar to the drop shipment approach, except the manufacturer (or author, or etc.)—not the Internet business—takes the customer’s order and money, and sends the commission directly to the Internet store. The Internet store, or—perhaps more accurately—the Internet advertiser may be a Website, a Blog, or a business that is promoted only through e-mails (be careful with this approach; it is very easy to break the anti-spamming laws if you don’t really know what you are doing).

Now the manufacturer (or whoever) may have a problem similar to what the businesses have in the drop ship approach: too many small businesses to keep track of when they still have to keep track of all of the manufacturing (or writing or whatever) processes. They may just not have the manpower (or computer power) to keep track of all of that.

Human ingenuity again comes into play. There are now “Internet wholesalers” who will:

1. List many—even hundreds or thousands—of companies and/or their products,
2. Give the Internet bloggers or businesses a unique URL for each product they want to promote,
3. Keep track of how many dollars of sales each business makes and who they made if from,
4. Collect the commissions from the manufacturers or other companies, and
5. Forward these commissions to the businesses that earned them.

If the blogger or Internet business wants to look a little further, they can also find companies that have affiliate programs that are not listed with any of the “wholesalers.” Using some of each type of affiliate program is not uncommon.

To further visualize this, let’s look at how an e-book might be marketed through affiliate marketing:

• Someone writes an e-book on body building. He or she signs up to have one of these “Internet Wholesalers” recruit affiliates to advertise the book. The author features the book on his web site, he offers a 50% commission to affiliates who sell the book to end consumers by promoting the book on their Websites or blogs.
• A potential affiliate sees the e-book in the wholesaler’s Website and decides to promote the body-building e-book on his own Website or in other online promotions.
• Every time a visitor to the affiliate’s Website, blog, or other advertisement clicks on the product link, the visitor is sent to the author’s site where the e-book can be purchased though the wholesaler and downloaded. The wholesaler takes care of tracking and following up on the sale (screening for fraud and processing the payment, etc.); if the transaction is successful (and it almost always is), the wholesaler pays both the author and the referring affiliate.
• The wholesaler also processes any sales from the author’s web site that are not referred through an affiliate. In those cases, the wholesaler pays only the author, as no referring commission has been earned.

Here is how you, an average blogger or small Website owner, can take advantage of Affiliate Marketing using an “Internet wholesaler.” We will use the idea of a blog here, but it works the same way if you have a Website.

You blog about a specific topic, let’s say Body Building. Besides spreading your thoughts and other information about Fitness, you would like to earn some money from your blog, but you feel you can’t afford the time to really search the Web to find products to promote, or figure out how to promote them. The blog keeps you busy enough.

If this is where you are at, you simply need to:

1. Go to one “wholesaler’s” Website (more if you want),
2. sign up with them,
3. choose your products from their listings and get your unique URL for each one,
4. Put the URLs on your blog and
5. Pray that folks will get to your blog and buy some of the products. (You can help get better listings from the search engines by adding to your blog on a regular basis—like once a week—and pinging* each time you add or modify something. This will help increase the traffic to your site.)

Let me give you an example:

If you sign up with one of the leading “Internet Wholesalers,” ClickBank (at no cost to you), you choose a nickname that will be added to each of the URLs for products that you want to promote.

Let’s say you want to promote ClickBank itself, and you chose a nickname of “derrickcm”. Your URL for promoting ClickBank would be http://www.clickbank.com/sell_products.html?hop=derrickcm. (If you chose to delete the “derrickcm” it would still pull up the ClickBank home page, but there would be no affiliate involved. However, if you then made a purchase, you would have taken a commission from the person that sent you to ClickBank. If you don’t want that to happen to you, don’t do it to others—I believe they call that the Golden Rule!) Whenever anyone clicks on your URL (and doesn’t modify it!) and then makes a purchase, you will get a commission. And that’s all you have to do!

It is a simple process for both you, the affiliate, and the author (or publisher or manufacturer or whoever). It’s a win-win for all involved.

ClickBank is probably the easiest site for someone just beginning in affiliate marketing to use. Running neck-and-neck with them would be PayDotCom— http://www.paydotcom.com/ (About 2500 merchants.)

But there are other good “wholesaling” companies out there. Some of the best are:

• Commission Junction—Over half of the top 500 Internet Retailers go with Commission Junction.

• LinkShare—Hundreds of merchants, including biggies like WalMart, Target, PetSmart, Discover, and American Express.

• Affiliate Future—This has about 200 merchants.

• AvantLink—This site is extra picky about qualifications for both affiliates and merchants—and that is a good thing.

• ShareASale—Over 2000 merchants.

• HD Publishing Group—Not many products, but they are unique and something almost everyone would want. They pay a very high percentage commission.

If you have a variety of products on your blog or Website that are related to its topic, you have a good chance of earning a respectable amount of money over time. This is definitely not a get-rich-quick approach, but even that has happened on occasion! Consider affiliate marketing as a hobby to add to your blog or Website and at the very least you will learn something about the marketplace—and probably even earn some money.

You’ve already found the ideal affiliate program to promote but you’re unsure of how to spread the word.  Maybe you found a great idea on Commission Junction or your set up an online store through Zlio.  Now you need to let others know about what you have so you realize profits, formally referred to as affiliate marketing.

Set Your Sights On A Site

Set up a website or blog to offer your affiliate products.  Consider it online real estate just like a store or office where you offer goods or services.  You need to pay for a memorable, simple domain name.  You can find web hosting and domain services for the price of two or three cups of coffee.  An option to get started immediately is a service such as Microsoft Live or Google Blogger to start a free website or blog.  The downside is a less memorable name, less storage space and large ads that detract from the professional tone of your site.  However, skillful designing can help you temporarily overcome these obstacles until you make more money to invest in an upgraded site.

Offer Relevant Content

Relevant, meaningful content draws visitors.  When people find useful information on your website, they return for more and share it with friends.  If the content is interesting and well-researched, you may be considered an authority or advisor in a particular area.  Your website should include compelling articles and links to reader-friendly blogs.

Create a Niche

Choose a target market for your affiliate products or services.  Decide who will be most likely to purchase your products or services based on common sense and statistics.  For example, marketing acne remedies to teens or hair loss solutions to middle-aged men.  Provide useful content to draw these potential customers to your affiliate website.

Add Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization gets you recognized on the major search engines.  Having a higher rating on the search engines drives more traffic to your website when they are looking for certain information or products.  To do this, incorporate popular keywords into the content on your website.  You can find out about keywords for free at a website such as Wordtracker.  Make sure keywords do not appear in more than 3 to 5 percent of your content or you may lose your ranking on the search engines.

Blog For Business

Blogs provide updated content and keep your website fresh.  You can offer new facts about affiliate offerings and programs to visitors by adding them to your blog.  Constantly adding new information to your website through a blog keeps you active on the search engines.  Your also get fresh visitors and give your current customers content to share with others.

Participate In Forum Marketing

Another great way to get the word out about your affiliate programs is to visit forums and other blogs.  Post comments to entries that pertain to your business and include a relevant link to your website.  This drives targeted traffic to your website who may genuinely be interested in buying your affiliate programs or services.  Another way to do this is through social forums such as Yahoo Answers.

Buy Pay Per Click Ads

Pay per click advertising is also referred to as PPC.  Sponsored PPC text link ads are placed on search engine results pages.  The ads are automatically placed near related search results to drive targeted traffic to your affiliate website.  Some of the most commonly used PPC advertising programs are Google Adwords and Yahoo Search.  You bid on keywords through one of these programs.  Once you purchase them, you can use the keywords in your ads to attract potential customers through PPC ads.  Choosing strong, popular keywords makes your campaign more effective.

Establish Multiple Streams of Income

Another way to attract targeted traffic to your affiliate product or services is to feature several related affiliate offerings.  For example, you can have acne remedies and hair products for oily hair on the same website.  People looking for either will find both and you can earn multiple streams of income by representing several affiliates for your efforts rather than just one.

Sell Your Affiliates Socially

Get sociable and take advantage of social sites to promote your affiliates.  For example, creating a Squidoo lens promotes your affiliate programs to a targeted market.  Your Squidoo lens interacts with your blogs and articles through popular keywords to submit your website to more blog directories and search engines.

Create Your Own Affiliate Product

You can even create your own affiliate product to make money.  For example, you can write an ebook about various skin and hair care remedies that links to your affiliate offerings.  You may choose to sell the ebook or offer it for free to lure potential customers.  If you sell your ebook, you can give others a commission for promoting and selling it to create your own affiliate program.  If it is a free ebook, you can refer them to your affiliates using unique links so everyone makes a profit.

These are the top ten budget-conscious ways to boost your affiliate marketing efforts for increased profits within weeks.

PPC Search engine marketing is a great way to get noticed in search engines, when your web site just doesn’t seem to be making it to the top of the search results as fast as you thought it would. PPC allows you to essentially bid on keywords that you think people who would like to find your site would type into search engines to find you.

For example, if you had a web site about internet marketing, then you would bid on keywords such as “internet marketing” “internet marketing seo” and “internet marketing strategy”. When a search for your keyword is entered into a search engine, your ad then appears on the top or right hand side of the search results, under the sponsors section.

The more you bid for a particular search phrase determines how high you are placed in the sponsored results. For example, if you bid $0.75/click then you would fall below anyone who bid $1.00/click but above anyone who bid $0.50/click. If a user sees your ad, and then clicks on it… you then pay for the amount you bid on per click for the referral of that visitor.

The adage, “You get what you pay for,” applies to a new form of Internet marketing – Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Engine Marketing.

If PPC is done properly, your Web site will more than make up the amount paid to purchase visitors or clicks from a search engine. If not managed well and kept up to date, the PPC form of advertising might cost you more than anticipated.

The general premise behind PPC – the alternative to natural or organic search engine optimization (SEO) – is to allow a Web-based business to immediately receive top search engine placement by bidding or paying for keywords related to its product or service. When someone types the keyword you choose into a search engine, your ad appears at the top immediately. It will appear under the sponsors section found on the top, or right hand side of the search results.

The pros of PPC include the ability to quickly attract new customers, which may lead to increased sales. Unlike SEOs, which optimize a Web site by increasing link popularity through acquiring links to the site, the PPC method is much faster to gain popularity.

The cons include losing money by not managing the PPC correctly and getting the most out of your marketing campaign. Also, competition is extremely strong. You must be able to challenge a similar business that is bidding more for a PPC ad from a search engine such as Google and Yahoo.

The best option for small businesses that are just getting started is to use PPC advertising to get immediate name recognition. Trying the SEO method is cheaper but it will take your business days and weeks longer to get noticed. And if time is money, how costly is even a week before your company is noticed as a viable entity on the Internet while other similar companies are drawing in customers everyday through PPC advertising?

To get the most out of your PPC advertising, utilize search engines that are widely used the most by visitors.

Google’s AdWords, Yahoo’s Search Marketing and MSN’s AdCenter are three of the leading search-engine marketing programs on the Web. Google is the most popular, with Yahoo and MSN running behind. Many other search engines exist and they too are exploring PPC advertising programs with Internet-related businesses.

Yahoo upgraded its Search Marketing program three months age to allow the ability to target ads geographically. Google already offered that feature.

Small businesses ready to embark on PPC advertising would be wise to hire individuals or businesses experienced with Internet marketing. A recent Web site search revealed companies such as sendtraffic.com, pointit.com and addvisors.com as leaders of that field. Many others exist.

They have experienced Internet marketing personnel on their staff who will be working for you to get the most out of your Web site visibility. Again, like the adage “you get what you pay for” suggests, the money you put in will be very valuable to what you can get out of it.

Paying for PPC advertising, utilizing the most popular search engines, and hiring a Web-based marketing business that specializes in this field, can lead to more traffic to your Web site and a more lucrative operation.

Ultimately, the advent of the PPC advertising is beneficial and a more powerful marketing tool than SEOs.  If your Web site does not rank well with the search engines, PPC allows you an immediate upgrade for visibility. The wider the audience you reach, the more profitable your business becomes.