Multiple big name companies have come on the internet in the past few years because they realize what a huge opportunity it is for them to make money, without having to pay much for advertising or worry about employee benefits. Companies such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Dell, Amazon and others are making huge sums of money on the internet by simply offering affiliates a "piece of the pie". They offer affiliates a commission to sell their products for them and they can start watching the cash roll in. Although they will do a certain amount of advertising themselves, they can pay these affiliates a small percentage of the sales and make an enormous amount of profits from them because they have almost zero overhead to worry about.

The benefit of promoting companies such as these is the fact that they're household names that people trust. These companies have invested an enormous amount of money into branding themselves and sometimes the name brand will make all the difference between getting the sale or not. Promoting companies like these can be a very lucrative opportunity for some people. I've heard of some incredibly high checks being sent out from Amazon in particular.

You can find most of these companies through affiliate marketing companies like Commission Junction, Linkshare, Performics and others. Joining them isn't too difficult, but you must have a valid website address in order to do so.