Make Money Online

While doing some basic research online, I was surprised to find so few articles written about Clickbank. As one of the largest affiliate networks, Internet marketers have been making money with Clickbank for as long as I can remember. There are a number of other providers of affiliate programs such as commission junction, and paydotcom. These programs have a lot in common.

The concept of an affiliate program is rather simple. These programs bring together manufacturers or providers of informational products with website owners, marketers, and vendors who wish to resell their products.

There are a number of reasons why someone would want to resell a third party product or service. The real motivator is money but there are additional benefits as well. When serving as an affiliate and selling someone else's product:

1. You don't have to take inventory. As an affiliate, you don't have to worry about buying the third party product, storing it, and then shipping it when you get a sale. Rather, you simply promote the product and receive a commission when someone that you refer buys from the manufacturer or originator of the product itself.

2. You don't have to create promotional material. In today's competitive affiliate marketplace, most product creators proactively create all the promotional material you need to sell their product. Banners, buttons, emails, and pitch pages are readily available and can be easily implemented on your website or blog.

3. You don't have to invest any money. Getting started as an affiliate doesn't require any cost. You simply sign up through an affiliate network and receive a publisher ID. When sales are made through your publisher ID, the affiliate site takes a small percentage of the sale. This is essentially how they make their money. The good part is that you don't have to spend any money out-of-pocket.

4. You can select products that are closely aligned to your niche. If you have a website or blog that focuses on a specific subject, area, or niche, you can find products that compliment your site and are closely correlated to your content. When matching the appropriate products with the right audience, conversion rates increase.

5. You can earn a nice living from commission 24/7. As you know, the best part of doing business online is that the Internet is always open, 365 days per year. This allows you to make sales of third party products at anytime.

Getting Started

When I first began in Internet marketing, there wasn't a lot of variety in the area of third party affiliate products to sell on my websites. As a result, I had to do online research, speak directly with vendors and often set up complicated tracking schemes in an effort to accurately track and record all sales being made. Since then, a lot has changed.

With the advent of affiliate networks, finding the right products to promote via your website or blog and getting up and running is very simple. To begin, visit one of the affiliate networks mentioned at the beginning of this article and sign up for a free account. Next, visit the market place and search for products related to your website's niche. Once you've identified a product that is relevant, create a tracking link and place it on your website along with any assets (banners, buttons, etc.) that can be used to promote the product or service.

The key is to remember that each link or piece of creative that you place on your site needs to have your tracking link included. This is very easy to do and is often a matter of cut and paste depending on which affiliate network you're using.

Each affiliate network offers support as well. Whether through live support, email, or some type of forum, you can get you most common questions answered quickly.

If you want to start making money online, then take a closer look at affiliate programs. It's quick, it's easy, and can add some money to your pocket.

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