Affiliate Programs - What Are They

By Lois R. Thompson
Posted Wednesday, November 17, 2004

In recent years Affiliate Program marketing has taken the Internet by storm. Many surveys have demonstrated that Affiliate Marketing can be the most cost effective method to promote your website and quickly generate additional streams of income. For example, Forrester Research has rated Affiliate Marketing as the most effective of all online marketing methods.

Jupiter Communications claims that, "By 2002, 25 percent of the expected $37.5 billion in Internet retail sales, not including autos, will have originated on Affiliate sites."

Some of the giants offering affiliate programs are: Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Microsoft, The Mail.com, and many smaller but well-managed companies.

Affiliate Programs offer a wide range of products and services, many of which are needed by All Internet marketers. The wide range of products and services offered by Affiliate programs are software, web hosting, auto-responders, marketing, art, books, e-books, music, movies, etc... Almost any type of product or service can be packaged and sold using an affiliate program. You'll find that many of the products and/or services needed to support your MLM are Affiliate Programs.

What Is An Affiliate Program?

Affiliate programs are also known as associate, reseller, or referral programs. They are revenue sharing programs between companies (the merchant) and individuals (the affiliate). An Affiliate can be likened to an independent contractor. Affiliates are basically self-employed people who are marketing the products and or services of another company. They are then paid by the company they represent for referring customers to the company's website.

This strikes a wonderful partnership between the company and the affiliate, offering a Win-Win situation for both parties. The benefit to the company in soliciting an affiliate to promote their product or service is, that they save in the cost of advertising. The benefit to the affiliate is that they do not have to develop their own product, stock inventory or worry about e-commerce, the order processing or payroll for that matter. It allows them to take an already developed product or service directly to market and focus on marketing.

Affiliate programs are fairly simple to work and will allow you to operate your on-line business much more efficiently while increasing your income drastically.

The Best Affiliate programs, offer a Two-tier pay plan. First, you earn commissions for signing up associates on your first level, as well as earning additional commissions on their sales. However, if you find an Affiliate program which pays only on one level but allows you to earn residual income this is an excellent opportunity.

Developing Affiliate income is beneficial to you in that it builds a stable secondary income stream. For many people this could be the difference in income they need to maintain building their MLM into a profitable venture.

About 90% of people who try to make money from two-tier affiliate programs are missing it by simply signing up free, in hopes they will make money through others, who most likely also signed up free. This just does not work.

Why doesn't that work? Well, if everyone signs up to an Affiliate program free, no one is Actively Promoting it consequently no one makes any money. This is also true of MLM programs. If everyone has the option of a free sign-up, most will take it. If most people are signed up free and in turn promote that offer to others who also sign-up free, there is no revenue generated. Without revenue there are not profits. Remember, it's all Your business, You have to work it. You cannot depend upon the next person.

In Affiliate Marketing as well as any other type of business, You Must do the work yourself. Build your first level and invest a little time and training to teach them, so they can then build their first level, which then becomes your second level. In Affiliate Marketing, your second level commission should be considered a Bonus.

There are many supporting products and/or services needed to build any MLM, which offer an Affiliate program. For example, the use of an Auto-responder is a must in any online promotional effort. Since the use of an Auto-responder is necessary in building your MLM, becoming an Affiliate of a good Auto-responder program would be a wise choice.

As you focus on building your MLM begin to look closely at the products and services you are using and determine if they offer an Affiliate program or not. I believe you'll be much surprised.

If you don't have an existing business, that's not a problem. A combination of a solid group of Affiliate programs working in synergy offers a great income producing potential, when effectively promoted. This could actually help you to begin earning income as you research and seek out the MLM opportunity that's best for you.

To re-cap, we have learnt that Affiliate Programs are offered in a variety of products and services. By choosing the right group of Affiliat programs in support of your MLM, you can quickly begin earning additional income.

About the Author
Lois is the editor of the highly acclaimed Building