You probably already know that you can make lots of money by starting up an online marketing business. Whether you want to give up your normal job or simply to make more money to make life more financially secure, an online business has many benefits over a normal business.

For a start marketing your products (or someone else’s as an affiliate) online gives you access to many more potential customers.

That means you will have a much wider market, which means you have the opportunity to make bigger profits than if you just sold in your own country. Another great advantage is the lower cost of setting up an online business, which means you will save money compared to a bricks and mortar business.

Make no mistake, you can start an online business on a very small budget - and many people have made their online fortunes from very small beginnings

And the wonderful thing is that you don’t even need to have a product of your own to get started in internet marketing. You can start making a good income in a very short time just by selling other people’s products as an affiliate marketer.

That’s right. One of the best ways of making money online is by selling other people’s products via affiliate marketing. But what is affiliate marketing exactly?

Affiliate marketing is simply promoting a product for an online merchant or retailer and being paid a commission for each item sold via your website. The merchant will usually supply you with promotional materials such as banners, text links and articles to use on your own website, which will help you to sell their product. Each of these will have some kind of link, which identifies you as the affiliate who referred the customer to the merchant.

Every time someone goes to the merchants website by clicking on one of these affiliate links a small piece of information called a ‘cookie’ (which is automatically stored on their computer) will identify them as coming from your website. If they then went on to make a purchase on the merchant’s website you will automatically be credited with the sale and get a commission.

These commission payments can be very high - often over 50% of the sale cost. Not only can you get very commissions but you could be paid immediately the sale is made!

It is usually quick and easy to sign up as an affiliate and, in many cases, you don’t even need to sign up directly via a merchants affiliate program. If the product is being sold by a merchant through a third party such as Clickbank then you can just get a special affiliate link directly from them without even contacting the merchant.

Clickbank will then handle all the sales for the merchant and pay your affiliate commissions directly to you. How easy is that!

However, some merchants will ask you to fill out a form containing information about yourself and maybe the URL of your website and a quick description about it. This is just so that the retailers can verify that you actually have a website that is relevant to their products. Then again, some affiliate programs don’t require you to have a website at all.

After filling out the form, you can then choose the affiliate programs you want to promote.

An alternative method, and usually an easier one, is to sign up as a member of an affiliate network- a network that hosts a variety of affiliate programs for different online merchants or retailers.

Signing up is usually free, although other companies and networks may require you to pay a fee. Such fees, however, are payment for additional services that the company may render, like providing you with tools and assistance to start your online business.

Once you have signed up as an affiliate you can usually start promoting their products right away and if you do it right you can start making money in days.

There are a number of ways for you to make money as an affiliate, and most of them depend on the type of affiliate marketing program you’ve entered into.

Most affiliate marketing programs compensate their affiliates in one of three ways:

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

In pay-per-click affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid whenever he directs traffic to the merchant’s site. They get paid even if no sale is made, just for sending someone to the merchant. The commissions are usually small however, but can add up to a tidy sum over time.

Pay-Per-Sale (PPS)

In PPS, the affiliate only gets paid when his referral converts into an actual sale. In typical PPS affiliate programs, the affiliate would usually get 15% to 20% commission for each conversion. However, for some digital products this can be 50% or more.

Pay-Per-Lead (PPL)

PPL affiliate programs work in a similar way, the difference is that affiliates are paid a fixed fee whenever his referral converts into a lead for the company.

Some merchants offer two-tier programs, whereby the affiliate is encouraged to recommend other affiliates to the merchant. In such affiliate programs, the affiliate would not only be paid for any traffic or sales that he sends to the merchant’s site but also for the traffic or sales sent by the affiliates who signed up for the program through his recommendation.

Another excellent way of making money from affiliate marketing is from residual affiliate programs.

Residual affiliate programs are affiliate programs where the affiliate gets paid for as long as the merchant keeps the customer the affiliate has referred to his site. One type of residual program pays the affiliate a commission every time the referred customer buys something on the merchant’s site. Another type of residual affiliate program pays the affiliate a percentage every month for as long as the referred person remains a subscriber.

So, how much money can an affiliate make from affiliate marketing?

It all depends on the affiliate. A dedicated and hardworking affiliate would undoubtedly make much more in affiliate product sales compared to those affiliates who simply sign up and then do nothing to promote any products. A so-called super affiliate will make thousands of dollars a month whereas someone who does his affiliate marketing half-heartedly will make very little.

So, there’s an irony in all of this. Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money on the internet but it still requires some work and the more effort you put in the greater the rewards.

Trust me, you will never forget the thrill of making your first affiliate sale and receiving your very first affiliate paycheck. It’s only a start but if you apply yourself to the task there will be many more in the future.

I hope this article has made you realize that affiliate marketing in its various forms is one of the best ways to make money online, just by promoting other people’s products