Affiliate Sales - where the big money is

April 7th 2008
Susan
Internet Income

I’m an affiliate whore. I love them. It’s the easiest way to make money online that I’ve ever found. However, it took me a bunch of reading and about $100 in books to figure out how to actually make money from affiliates. And I’m still working on learning! Here is an ‘affiliate primmer’. If you want to make good money online you’ve got to learn how to use affiliates well.
What are affiliates?
Affiliates are companies that sell products and who want you to get your readers to buy their products. They create the product and you advertise it through a unique link on your website that has a code in the link that identifies you as being you. When your readers click through this link and buy the product you get a percentage of the purchase, up to 50% usually. The best affiliate programs are ones where the product being sold is a recurring cost (such as a membership or insurance policy) that will generate income for you each and every month.
Why use an affiliate instead of link advertising?
Actually, I recommend that you use both. Affiliates done well will fit in seamlessly with your website or blog so that it will be a recommendation of a product not a sales pitch your readers are receiving. For dedicated readers this means more to them and will increase the funds that you receive from your link advertisements. Link advertisements are great for new or occasional visitors to your site.
How do I find affiliates?
I find affiliates in two ways. Most of my affiliates are products I found helpful first and then went looking for an affiliate program with. These are, however, the lower-paying of my affiliate programs. I use them because I’ll be writing the recommendations anyway why not make a few bucks? The more productive affiliates that I work with are ones I’ve found through searching ClickBank and Commission Junction for affiliates that meet the criteria I’m looking for. These I choose by two main criteria- if their product is a good one I will want to recommend in good conscience to my readers and if the commission scale will make me a significant amount.
How do I start?
If you have a blog or website sign up with Commission Junction and ClickBank and probably a few other affiliate programs out there to figure out how they work. Once you’ve had a good look around, choose 3-10 affiliate programs to promote on your site and focus on these by rotating them on a regular basis. Good luck!

Do you use affiliate programs? Which ones do you like the best? Which ones make you the most money?