Many people get confused between Affiliate marketing, and multi-level marketing, but there is a vast difference between the two. When you are an affiliate marketer, your job is to promote the company in a positive light, and market the product, service, or opportunity the company is offering. For your efforts you receive a commission from the sales that are directly the result of your advertising or marketing.

Who Offers Affiliate Programs?
Larger companies offer affiliate programs, which is a much cheaper way for them to advertise, and promote their business than if they were to hire a full time marketer. The affiliate program will be free to join, as well as materials, and tools being included. Once signed up to the affiliate program, you are given a unique identifying code, along with banners, ads, and other useful campaigning tools to start prompting the business.

Advertising Your Affiliate Program
Once you have your unique code, which is usually a URL with numbers after it, you are ready to start promoting the program. You can do this a number of ways such as PPC advertising in directories, writing articles for inclusion in article directories, write in your Blog, or add the affiliate program to your website, and include links or banners. Ideally all of these methods should be used together.

How You Get Paid
The visitors who click on your personal link are tracked back to your unique code. This means that if they were to purchase a product or service you are promoting, you will receive a commission that can be anywhere from 10% to 50% of the total amount the customer has spent. Many companies have a cookie taker added to your unique code URL, and what this does is track visitors who have followed your link. If they return within the time that the cookies are valid, and buy from the company, you will still receive your commission, cookie expiries usually last around 90 days.

More Affiliate Income
Some affiliate programs also offer a tier program, which means that if you refer another affiliate to the program through one of your links, you will be paid a commission, or receive a commission each time that they bring in a new customer who purchases a product or service. Tier commissions can sometimes go as deep as 3 tiers, which means that any of the people that you refer, can go on to refer others, and, they can refer even more affiliates, and you will receive a commission for each time they make a sale from their links.

Affiliate Tips
Not all affiliate programs are created equally, so it is important to read the terms, and conditions of the program before starting to promote it. Affiliate marketing isn't as easy as it seems. To really succeed, you must be dedicated, and prepared to review, and track each of your marketing attempts, and improve constantly on them to keep generating a constant flow of targeted traffic. But with dedication, and hard work, you can make an income from promoting other people's products, and services through an affiliate program.