One simple way to make money online is through affiliate marketing. Signing up to an affiliate program is free. It is understandable then why lots of people online are into affiliate marketing. They are looking to make handsome commissions by referring prospects to other people’s products. And they do make decent commissions - that is those who know how to.

However, not all affiliate marketers are making these decent commissions as referring prospects to other peoples websites costs money. Also not all the people you refer to a website (no matter how hot the product is) will buy first time round. Research shows that it takes between 7-10 exposures for a prospect to make a purchase. This means that the affiliate marketer sending traffic to a website and hoping for a visitor to purchase first time round may be expecting too much.

So what's the solution? Simple. As an affiliate marketer you simply must send your visitors to your website or squeeze page first. Your squeeze page has one purpose - to capture the name and address of your visitor so that you can contact them over time and refer them back to your affiliate product website. In contacting your visitors over time, you begin to build trust and confidence. This process is called list building.

Now let me put this way. If as an affiliate marketer, you are sending traffic to a website without first capturing your prospects details STOP!

It is important to understand that there are two main things that will happen to any traffic you send to an affiliate website. People will either buy or they will not. List Building takes care of those who did not buy first time round. If you are not building your list then you are building someone else's. Harsh but true. To make decent commissions as an affiliate marketer you must have your own list. Don't rely on substantial numbers of your visitors buying first time as it will not happen. List Building allows you to use your traffic effectively.

So, does the affiliate marketer need to build a list too? The short answer is yes. The long answer is that as affiliate marketers you need to send traffic to your website lead capture page or squeeze page first so you can pre sell your subscriber BEFORE you send them to the affiliate product website. Treat them well by providing useful information they can benefit from. The relationship you build with your subscribers before you make any product recommendation ensures they remain loyal to you.

At the end of the day it probably takes about the same effort or less to build your own list as it does to keep looking for fresh traffic to send to a website each time you have a new 'hot' product to promote.

With a list that you have spent time and effort developing a relationship with, you can be in that enviable position of sourcing a great product that will truly benefit your opt in list, send one or two emails to them and be handsomely rewarded in a matter of hours.

It certainly pays to have your own opt in list.

If you want to make serious money in commissions from affiliate marketing you should drop all else and start to build an opt in list without further delay. You have heard it said time and again that, "the money is in the list." If you are an affiliate marketer do you need any more encouragement to build a list too?