Let it face it : if you are an affiliate promoting affiliate programs and you do not belong to the couple of thousand `gurus´, heavy hitters or super affiliates or you are not promoting a number one affiliate program or you are not selling the best reseller programs your chances with your endeavour to make a living online are very slim. And this is a fact.

So you want to make money on the internet. Millions worldwide are trying to do so. The first hurdle they have to master is to filter all possible opportunities to find out that more than 80% of them are a hoax – programs that appear to take your money and after 3-4 months they just disappear. The same could happen with short living products. They are “in” for the moment and out-fashioned very quickly. Be cautious to select the right program.

After having checked a hundred business opportunities offering products and services you will be faced with terms like MLM, promotion, recruiting, downline and matrix. Well, in order to make money with these programs you have to be active and sell them by using promotional tools. You will find out the advantages and disadvantages of downlines and matrices. Downlines can make you money, but downlines can also disappear when your upline and downline stop making sales or just give up. Your hard work to get people under you promoting the product ends up with a loss. The same can happen with your matrix : if members can not fill a matrix, there would not be an income.

Be aware of business opportunities that requires you to buy a product on a monthly base or to pay a monthly membership fee or you are faced with costs without any return. In that case you are loaded with the above as well as the additional costs of selling your product. Expenses include costs of advertising, pay-per-click, autoresponders, phone calls and it can really add up.

With all that said to be successful on the internet you have to find a targetable market that wants a product, and then just give it to them. When picking a subject you are passionate about you make sure the market is there. Research the sites on that topic that generates income through affiliate programs and find a stand-alone product to promote with great conversion rate, paying high commissions, offering real time statistics and acceptable payment schedules.

After a couple of months of successfully promoting your products you know you will have to put your activities on a higher level. To get more sales you will create your own website, start your own newsletter, get links, do more advertising, get top placements on search engines and use more pay-per-click search engines. With all that you are on your way to become a super affiliate. But before it gets to that stage most marketers already quit. No wonder 98% involved in MLM, downlines and matrices have never recouped their original investment in starting their business.

So what is the Alternative ?

When promoting a business opportunity you have to apply all that said details in order to build your opt-in list and to create massive targeted traffic to your site. If you don´t do it, your business is doomed to fail. As you can read in any marketing e-book: The money is in the list! No list, no money!

Rapidly, your question might arise: is there also an alternative, a chance to make money without promoting a product or service on the internet? Yes, there is and there is an increasing demand for business opportunities offering chances to make money without any activities, real passive-income solutions. There is a bunch of different categories popping up, be it free money programs which will pay you a commission for a bit of effort on your part.

Reading emails, surfing the net and filling out survey forms are such programs. Other categories include money doublers, cyclers, gambling sites, hyips, forex, investment funds, just to name a few. They all have in common that you are not forced to promote with all its cost. You make money without having a list or targeted traffic. In addition most passive-income opportunities offer their affiliate program as well, which can be used to make some additional income.

It is said that there is a much bigger chance to lose your money with passive-income opportunities, because there is risk involved when promised offers are not fulfilled and /or business plans are based on unrealistic assumptions. There are many dishonest programs around that make false or dishonest claims. You might lose your one-time payment, but you did not have all the cost of promoting and time lost trying to make money. There is no selling and recruiting and no fear of failure.

Your benefits of generating a passive income can be great. Make a strong initial effort by choosing the right programs to get your income started, then create an unlimited amount of income – you are only limited by your imagination. Your passive income is not dependent on a regular work and you are able to give yourself a pay raise whenever you want by creating multiple income streams.

The best way to make money on the internet is to develop your own program and look for affiliates which are doing all the promotion work like mentioned in the upper part of this article.

So what to do?

If you feel good in communicating and acting like a salesman your choice to promote affiliate programs is positive and there is a chance that you will join and belong to the small percentage of people earning money on the internet. On the other hand, if you do not like all the necessary activities to make money then a passive-income program is the right thing for you. Do a proper search of programs and if you find the right one you might end up as a big winner.