Tips for Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is definitely a hot topic on the Web these days, and for good reason, as it's a great way to make money without a lot of the traditional overhead and expense. While it's not a guaranteed source of easy money as many affiliate marketing articles may claim, it can be a great way to put your marketing and Web skills to work to produce a steady stream of income, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Affiliate marketing is a proven way to make money online, and one that requires very little overhead or startup costs. The basic principle of affiliate marketing is pretty simple and straightforward: online businesses and e-commerce sites pay affiliates for driving customers and traffic to their products. These affiliates do much of their marketing work for them, building Web sites, blogs, and other sites with links and banners to generate new sales and customers.

And why would affiliates do this? To make money, of course! Affiliate marketing programs typically compensate affiliates based on a percentage of the sales they produce, so an affiliate stands to make anywhere from 5%-30% of the total amount purchased by customers that they refer, or they may receive a flat fee per new customer, subscription, or sale. It's a win-win situation for both parties, as the businesses that offer affiliate programs are able to greatly expand their marketing efforts at very little cost to them, while affiliates are able to make very good money without having to worry about inventory, customer service, or shipping.

There are tons of affiliate programs available to promote, so browse these tips for finding good affiliate programs and you'll be off and running. The programs are always free to join and provide you with the marketing materials you'll need, including banners, graphics, and even tools for generating HTML pages and entire Web sites. And naturally, the more money that is involved in that very business, the better the tools offered by the program will be. High income programs like poker affiliates normally offer good tools that are valuable to your visitors. The poker affiliate business has shown large profits for quite some time and the competition amongst the programs are fierce to find the best affiliates marketing their poker program. Tools are one way for them to stand out from the competition and this also helps you as an affiliate.

Some basic HTML skills will serve you very well, but imagination and perseverance is even more valuable, as you'll need to find the niche that's right for you and try lots of different approaches before you find the perfect one. Affiliate marketing can be very hard work but once you find the right approach it can turn into easy money, especially when you keep earning residual income from past sites and marketing campaigns you've created.