What affiliate programs are and how to make money with Affiliate Programs

What affiliate programs are and how to make money with Affiliate Programs

Recently I published a post on Basics of Affiliate Marketing You might want to check them out HERE
 
Affiliate programs, also known as associate programs or publisher programs, are actually quite simple. You get paid for selling someone else's product or service. It is like being a salesman. All you have to do is sign up with the affiliate program of some company, such as Best Buy or Circuit City. You will then be given an account and a link, banner, or other advertisement. You place that advertisement on your web sites and when someone clicks on that link, their visit is tracked. If they decide to make a purchase, you will earn a percentage of the amount that the web site selling the product earns on that sale. For example some companies will pay 10% commission so if a visitor to your web site clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase of $100, you will get $10 (these type of programs that pay you per sale are normally called pay per sale affiliate programs).

There are many different types of affiliate programs so not all of them will pay you per sale or a percentage of a sale. Some of these different types of affiliate programs include pay per lead, residual income (also known as recurring commission, recurring income, lifetime commission and lifetime income), affiliate networks, cpa networks, two tier programs, popups, popunders, ad networks, and contextual ads. No matter what type of commission these affiliate programs pay, you still will earn from them. The amount you earn depends on how much effort you put into working with them.

Most major companies and retailers, such as Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Sears, Macy's, GameStop, Circuit City, and thousand of others have affiliate programs that pay at varying rates so you should do your research before placing an affiliate link on your web site.

To be successful with affiliate advertisements, you must select a company that offers a product that your customers will be interested in. For example, if you run a video game site, don't place associate links for 1 800 Flowers or Home Depot on your web site, they will seem out of place and do very poorly. You have a much better chance of making money by placing affiliate links to Game Stop, EBGames, GameFly, or other video game companies that have affiliate programs.

Also, make sure that you do not have too many affiliate advertisements on your web site because it will draw visitors away and you will not make any money and lose traffic.

One great way to make a lot of money using affiliate or publisher programs is to create a product review web site. You can review any product you like from cell phones to MP3 Players to furniture and everything in between. Place an affiliate link to a web site where the product being reviewed can be purchased. This is especially useful if you gave a certain product a very good review and tempted readers to purchase that specific item.


Affiliate programs are a great way to monetize your web site and you should definitely take the time to look into them.