Affiliate marketing basically means selling other people's products for a commission online. Affiliate marketing is similar to offline sales where sales people earn a commission for selling a product; the difference is that all selling is conducted online.

Affiliate marketing is a good way to get started online. You can start by creating your website, register to affiliate program, ready to go within a few days and you are not required to have your own products or purchasing inventory. You are simply advertising other people's products, which means the vendor is actually responsible for order fulfillment, customer service and anything else related to the sale – you simply refer the sale to them and get paid for doing so.

As an affiliate marketer you will research and find products to advertise on your website. Each time you make a sale through your affiliate link you will earn a portion of that sale. The commissions can vary, depend on products and merchant's program, from as low as 5% to more than 50%.

The sales are tracked through your unique affiliate ID which is assigned to you at the time you sign up for a specific affiliate program. Your unique affiliate ID is tracked and each time a lead or sale is made through your link it is recorded, depends whether merchant program is pay-per-click, pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale (detail see other articles in this blog). A good affiliate program will give you plenty of tools to advertise their products as well as a comprehensive member's area where you can track your affiliate sales and commissions.

If you'd like to start joining affiliate internet marketing, you can start from your hobby. For example if you have a love of cooking, you can create a website around cooking related topics and include tips, recipes, and reviews of all your favorite cooking gadgets. You can then find affiliate programs online and promote some of those products on your website. You can find programs by doing a search under your chosen topic such as “cooking” and adding the words “affiliate program” to that term.

Although affiliate marketing is an easy way to get started online, there is a little more to it than just throwing up a few links and banners and waiting for the affiliate check to arrive. A good affiliate marketer knows it takes time and effort to make sales.

A good way to do this is by providing quality information on your website and only linking to affiliate products where appropriate. Another good tip is to review the products you promote so that you can accurately describe all the features - good and bad. Your customers will appreciate honest feedback and will be more likely to buy from you if you give them good quality information and honest reviews.