What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate programs have become one of the most popular ways for companies to market their products and services online.

A company also known as a ?merchant? offers a product or service. As an affiliate you sign up to promote the product. Your task is to send a stream of visitors to the company's web site. You do this using a customized link that allows the company to identify which affiliate referred the visitor. Whenever a visitor sent by you buys the affiliate product, you earn a commission.

At ClickBank for example, most of the affiliate products are e-books. Many of the e-books sell for $30 to $50 each, and affiliates typically earn 50% to 75% of that for referring a customer.


Where to Find Affiliate Products?

There are many places online to find good affiliate products. The first place to look is the major affiliate program networks such as Commission Junction, LinkShare, and ClickBank. You can also find many more independent affiliate products and an excellent forum for affiliates at AssociatePrograms.


How to Promote Affiliate Products?

Many affiliates choose to promote affiliate products by placing advertisements at pay-per-click search engines. If you are on a tight budget, however, that might not be an option for you at the early stages of your new affiliate marketing business. But you can still use a number of other methods such as promote affiliate products using:

- Links from your own web pages
- Links from a blog. If you don't have a blog you can start one free at Blogger.com
- Squidoo Lenses. You can set up Squidoo pages at zero cost.
- Writing free articles and linking to an affiliate landing page. You should make post the article at free article directories such as EzineArticles and IdeaMarketers.


As you can see, affiliate marketing is a great option if you want to start up a low cost online business.