Affiliate Marketing Business

An affiliate marketing business on the web is about promoting other people's products or services for a commission of the sale. 

It's also one of the best passive income strategies you'll find.

Here's how an Affiliate Marketing Business works

From my experience, success with affiliate marketing starts with creating a website around a specific niche topic, then promoting affiliate products or services that relate to or complement that niche topic.

I don't personally recommend creating an affiliate marketing business around just one product or merchant.  For instance, what happens if that product or merchant goes away?   You're out of business. 

Always have at least 2 or more affiliate products or services related to your niche that you promote.

Purchase The Products or Services You Promote

All successful affiliate marketers purchase the products they promote and I recommend you do the same.  

Even though it's not required to make a purchase yourself, you'll be much more effective at promoting because you'll be personally familiar with it.  To me this is essential for writing product reviews and making product comparisons, which is one of the most effective ways to promote affiliate products and services. 

There's really no substitute for experiencing a product first.   

What Types of Affiliate Programs are there?

Affiliate programs are free to join and offer several commission schemes.

For example, an affiliate can earn money in one of three ways:

• Pay per sale - Affiliate is paid a set commission for sales generated from his affiliate's link.  
• Pay Per lead - Affiliate earns a specific amount when a visitor clicks on his affiliate link taking them to the merchant site and completes a contact form with their name, address and email.  
• Pay Per Call - This commission scheme requires a special call tracking technology but basically pays the affiliate a specific amount based on the calls they received that were referred by the affiliate.  

Some affiliate programs only provide one commission option, some provide all three; it simply depends on the program.

It's important to remember that the job of an affiliate marketer is not to sell really, it's to promote or pre-sell, a term coined by Ken Evoy in his Affiliate Masters Course.  

It's actually the product or service owner's job to do the selling.  Your job is to get the click.

A successful affiliate marketing business will have 4 things.

1. A profitable niche topic website/blog 
2. Effective promotion strategies 
3. Provide Quality affiliate programs 
4. Provide Quality content 
5. Use effective promotion strategies  

An affiliate marketing website is one that is niche focused. This is where good niche market research can pay off big time. 

Start by focusing on a smaller subset of a larger market, referred to as niche marketing.  By focusing on a smaller market niche your marketing efforts will be much more targeted making it easier to generate steady, consistent sales. 

Best Affiliate Marketing Strategies to help you get started

Find your niche with this Niche Market Research

Find your Niche with this niche market research

Find the best affiliate programs to promote. 

Find quality affiliate marketing networks.

For more on how affiliate marketing works, site creation, avoiding mistakes and pitfalls, promotional strategies, finding the best affiliate programs, etc., Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook. has everything you need to know for profiting with your own affiliate marketing business.