Welcome to the most rewarding type of online marketing ever!

Welcome to affiliate marketing; a way to get paid a commission for every buyer you refer without doing any more work than that and without investing a fortune in products. Here's how it works:

Internet marketing professionals realize that it costs a fortune to promote a product to millions of potential buyers. That's why they are willing to share a percentage of their sales to affiliate marketing people who are able to refer buyers to their web site.

These companies set up online marketing affiliate programs that anyone who is interested in earning money can join. Once you become an affiliate marketing partner, or "affiliate" as you will commonly be called, you get a special referral URL that you use to promote the product or products that you choose to be associated with.

There is no practical limit to the number of products that you can represent, but good affiliate marketing practices dictate that you start out with just one or two products that you can focus on until you learn the ropes and start earning money.

And how much money can you earn when you become an affiliate marketing promoter? The answer is hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars every month. But don't expect to hit those numbers when you first get started in affiliate marketing. It takes times to learn all of the tricks and techniques and to find the products that not only pay the highest commissions, but have the highest closing ratio as well.

A closing ratio refers to the number of sales made as compared to the number of people referred. A higher closing ratio is more valuable to an affiliate marketing person than a higher commission rate in many cases. That's because the more sales you make, the more commission you earn. A product that pays a $50 commission, but only had a 10% closing rate, would not pay you as much income as an equivalently priced product that only paid a $25 commission but had a 25% closing rate.

That's just one of the secrets to successful online marketing that you need to know when you get started in affiliate marketing. There are many more.

For example, some internet marketing companies run their own affiliate marketing programs, while others choose to partner with a professional affiliate marketing service providers that handle all of the registration and payment details. As a new affiliate marketer, you might feel more secure going with a service provider because there is less of a chance of you not getting the commission check that you're owed. Some fly-by-night ripoff artists run affiliate programs but then disappear when it's time to pay off.

But don't let the few dishonest ones scare you off. Take your time, learn all you can learn and then start slowly. The sky's the limit once you become an experienced affiliate marketing pro!