The reason for this is very simple. It’s the quickest, easiest and most time efficient method of making money online. You don’t need your own product, you don’t need a list, you don’t need a whole lot of time, best of all, you don’t even need a website.

So, what is Internet Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products. When you generate a sale through your unique affiliate ID, you receive a percentage of the profits.

There are many affiliate networks out there where publishers and retailers list their products. You promote these products in any way you can, creating sales that may not have ever happened for the publisher. The affiliate network then pays you either by check or straight into your PayPal or bank account.

Let me give you an example. Take a second and have a look around ClickBank.com (this will open into a new window).

ClickBank specialises in digital products, mainly eBooks, eCourses and software. There are over 10,000 digital product publishers who list their products on ClickBank. ClickBank take care of everything for the publishers, from ordering and payment through to digital delivery. They track sales and pay commissions to the affiliates.

Clickbank also recruit affiliates who are ready and willing to promote these products on their blogs, in forums, on their websites and through email etc. At this time there are over 100,000 active members promoting products through ClickBank. This is with good reason, as some vendors offer generous commissions of up to 75% of the value of the product whenever you make a sale.

Go to ClickBank and click on ‘marketplace’ up there in the right hand corner. In the search box on the marketplace page, type in a subject that you may be interested in promoting, this may be ‘dating,’ ‘weight loss’ or ‘growing great tomatoes.’

On the screen that appears will be a list of products currently being promoted. For this example I have chosen ‘dating.’

The default setting for how products are displayed is ‘popularity.’ Very simply, this is decided by a combination of how much the product earns the affiliate, the percentage paid for each sale, the percentage of the total sales paid to all affiliates and the number of affiliates that have made sales promoting the product.

For the novice affiliate marketer, the three areas you only really need to assess are gravity, dollars earned per sale and the look and feel of the sales page. What these basically mean are:

Gravity: The amount of affiliates promoting the product (your competition).
Total $/sale: The amount you as an affiliate get paid every time you refer a sale.
Sales Page: The page presented to the prospective buyers.

You can list the products by their gravity by selecting this from the dropdown menu.

What gravity basically means is how popular the product is with other internet marketers. As a beginner affiliate marketer, you really don’t want to be going up against highly skilled and experienced marketers straight away. Many affiliates say to stick to a gravity of around 75% - 150% when first starting out.

The next thing to look at is how much the payout will be for each product, as this ultimately is your bottom line. You will find this information in green under the description.

The total $/sale is how much you get paid. You will also find the gravity percentage here. If you are happy with these things then next you want to click on the link that reads ‘view pitch page.’ This is the sales page the buyer will be directed to.

It is critical you choose a product with a good pitch page, as you can drive thousands of people to a website, but if the sales page doesn’t convert, you’ve wasted your time, effort and money.

Have a thorough read through of the sales page and ask yourself the following:

• Does it grab my attention straight away?
• Does it make me interested in knowing more?
• Does it make me want the product for myself?
• Does it make it very easy for me to buy and direct me several times to do this?
• Is it professional looking?
• Does it convey the information in a clear concise format?

As you get better at this you will soon learn what makes a good sales page and get better and better at promoting your products. The best way to learn anything however is to just do it. Nothing will teach you faster than getting out there and getting your hands dirty straight away.

Happy promoting!

I’m both an affiliate marketer and have also created my own affiliate products, so I’ve started this blog to share some of my success with you! I hope you find something of interest here.

I want to share everything I have learned with you, to help you with your affiliate marketing, through to your own product creation, and everything in between.

I’m looking forward to being here for you every step of the way.

Here’s to your success, both online and off!