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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

By Tyler Monesy

Today more and more people are looking at the internet as a way of earning an extra income for themselves. Certainly, for those who are interested in running an online business they will have heard about affiliate marketing. But just what is affiliate marketing and why can it help you with actually earning an extra income online if you get involved.

With affiliate marketing a person rather than holding the goods themselves to then distribute acts as an intermediary for the producer of such items. In order to get involved in this particular form of online business one needs to select and then sign up to an affiliate program. Then for every sale made through their website the person earns a commission from those whose product they are selling. On average an affiliate marketer can expect to earn between 20% and 25% commission on each sale that they make.

Yet in order for you to become an affiliate marketer the first thing one need to do is sign up to an affiliate program of their choice. Preferably you should aim for a product which you like or know something about and which there are not too many other affiliates trying to earn commission on it. After signing up to the program those producing the goods will forward to you a link that has a cookie embedded within it. It is this cookie which when a sale is made to them will inform the affiliate program owner which of their affiliate marketers the sale has come from. It is then they will be able to pay the commission on that sale to the marketer in question.

Many people have actually tried to go it alone when it comes to affiliate marketing, but have found it difficult simply because there are so many different programs to choose from. The best thing you could do to ensure that you get in on the right programs is carry out some affiliate marketing training first. As you will discover there are plenty of people online who now offer such training as well as help and advice to get you started.

If you do not participate in any kind of training then you may find yourself making very common mistakes, which can actually result in you losing rather than earning sales. Below we provide some tips, which can help you to avoid such mistakes when it comes to getting involved in affiliate marketing.

1. It is vital that before you sign up to any kind of affiliate program you have some sort of marketing strategy in place. Remember you will need to think carefully about the ways in which you are going to promote the product to ensure that you target the right audience and so get those all-important visitors coming to your site. Writing articles and reviews on the product in question and submitting to sites such as Ezine Articles is a good way to start.

2. Also it is vital that you do as much research as possible in to the product in question before signing up as an affiliate marketer. You need to look closely to see who else is an affiliate and just how many other affiliate marketers are already signed up to the program. The more competition you have when it comes to selling a product unless you can produce some really good promotional material then the less likely you are to make any sales.

In this article we have explained a little bit about just what affiliate marketing is and what you should do in order to ensure that you end up marketing a good product. The more time you spend researching and learning about specific products that are available then the more likely you is to choose one, which will help you to earn a good income online.

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