As you are most probably aware by now, affiliate marketing can be an extremely rewarding venture for both the affiliate and the merchant. Affiliates can make money for providing a link to a merchant's site and doesn't even really require a website let alone a product or inventory. The merchant benefits greatly with affiliates by increased sales without the extra marketing costs.

When either the merchant or the affiliate goes into an arrangement like this, the underlying goal is to make money. So once you get into the swing of things, it's very important to leverage the traffic you're getting and increase your revenue by creating a revenue funnel that earns more money with back end sales.

Back end selling is really an easy implementation to a new an existing website but best practices recommend that this is included in the process at the start of any website or blog so you don't lose out on any traffic you drive to your site. This is done with a simple capture form that visitors fill out to get a free product, subscription or updates from the site.

Back end selling is basically selling after the first sale or first contact is made with the visitor or buyer. When a visitor fills out the form or buys from you, you have a contact name and email in which you can advertise other products to later on down the road. This process is called selling on the back end or a back end sale.

Now that the customer has already purchased something from you or requested more information from you, a certain level of trust has been built between you and the customer. This trust allows you to send the customer an email with another promotion without spamming that person. It can also make the next sale even easier than the first.

This sales process has been around for a while with online and offline businesses, and has proven to increase income ten fold by having a customer over a long period of time. The key is that if he bought once there's a good likelihood that he'll buy again, as long as your product and service is appreciated.

This process has taken on a much bigger view in the internet marketing business and can be summed up in the infamous two words, “The List.” I'll bet you've seen those 2 words about 5 – 10 times today alone, but for a good reason, if you're not collecting names and emails, you're probably working way too hard and leaving a boat load of cash on the table.

You work very hard for your traffic and it's important to make sure you're getting the most out of every visitor to your site. Even if they don't buy now, get them on your list and they will usually buy something from you eventually. Back end sales work great with affiliate marketing, and have been the difference between a successful business and a failing business.

Affiliate marketing will attract many new customers and lead to the initial sale, while back end selling will build loyalty among the buyers. To put it in other terms, back end selling is a major ingredient in creating a winning formula in affiliate marketing.

If you're just starting out with affiliate marketing, make sure that you create you own site or blog so you can control the actions of your visitors. Stop making someone else rich and turn your affiliate campaign into a successful business by capitalizing on back end sales.