Making Money with an Affiliate Marketing Business

If you would like to start an internet business but don't have your own product to sell, consider making money with an affiliate marketing business. 

Affiliate marketing is a very doable internet business model that doesn't require having your own product, there's no shipping or inventory involved and there is no customer services details to sort through.

To begin making money with an Affiliate marketing business you will first need to partner with an online merchant whereby you will promote their goods or services. If you make a sale -- you receive a commission.

But is affiliate marketing a real "honest to goodness business" that you can actually make money at?

ABSOLUTELY, I do it every day! And after having been involved with several internet marketing business models prior to affiliate marketing, this is the one I enjoy and love doing the most.

But let's delve into this extremely profitable business model a bit more.

How You Make Money with An Affiliate Marketing Business

You can find affiliate merchants through popular affiliate marketing networks like Commission Junction, LinkShareLinkConnector or Clickbank. You can also find products through private sites that offer affiliate programs as well but I find that it's easier to start out with affiliate networks, payments are more on schedule and products are easier to find.

Once you find an affiliate merchant you can sign up for their affiliate program which is typically free to join -- beware of merchants that charge money to join their affiliate programs, these are generally not affiliate programs.

Once signed up, the affiliate merchant will assign you an affiliate link for you to promote.

How you promote that link is up to you, however I strongly suggest that you create a web site for promoting your affiliate product(s). There will be some costs to creating and hosting a website and the purchase of a domain name, but these costs are minimal.

How you earn money through affiliate marketing depends on how the affiliate program is set up.  There are typically 3 ways:

Pay Per Click — Any time a potential customer leaves your affiliate website by "clicking" on your affiliate link that leads them to the merchant's website. Money is then deposited in your affiliate account. The amount of money deposited depends on the what's in the affiliate agreement.

Pay Per Lead — Any time a potential customer leaves your affiliate website by "clicking" on a link that leads them to complete a registration form or register at the merchants website. Money is then deposited into your affiliate account. The amount of money deposited depends on the what's in the affiliate agreement.

Pay Per Sale — Any time a potential customer leaves your affiliate website by "clicking" on a link that leads them to the merchant's site where they make a purchase. A percentage, or commission, is deposited into the affiliate's account depending on what's in the affiliate agreement.

Promoting Your Affiliate Marketing Products/Service for making the most money

Be on the lookout for affiliate programs that pay residual income.  Residual Income Programs are programs that pay you month after month. They come from promoting products such as monthly subscriptions or monthly services. For example I promote a hosting company called Thirdsphere hosting. Thirdsphere is a monthly hosting service that I get commission from every month as long as the customer continues his/her subscription.

Promoting residual income products or services is an excellent way of ensuring you keep a steady income arriving each month.

The best way to promote your affiliate products is through a website.  A website allows you to promote your products by posting useful affiliate product reviews, articles and content that interests your visitors.  It's called pre-selling. By pre-selling your visitor you are 'warming them' up' , so to speak, to the idea of purchasing your products.  It gives the viewer much more information to go on before making the purchase and buyers appreciate that much more than just pointing them to an affiliate link.

Newbie affiliate marketers often start out by simply posting their affiliate links on their site without creating useful content.  Very few sales are made that way.  Ken Evoy explains how this works quite well in his Affiliate Master's Course.  I highly suggest you get a copy and read it -- it's free but very good.  

Another personal recommendation of mine for learning everything about affiliate marketing and the money making strategies is Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook -- highly recommended!