Understanding Affiliate Programs

In an affiliate program you basically sell someone else's product or service for a commission. All you need is a website. You do not need a merchant account. You do not need to ship or track inventory. Your only job is to send potential customers to the web sites of your merchant partners. They do the selling, process the order and ship it out. You just collect your commission on each sale!

This sounds really easy, but there is more to affiliate programs than meets the eye. Fortunately there is an excellent, highly detailed course on affiliate selling that is free. It is sent via email in 5 installments. I highly recommend you get Ken Evoy's Affiliate Master Course. This FREE intensive 5-Day e-mail course runs over 150 pages and covers everything you need to know to become a successful affiliate. This is top quality information. Frankly, I can't believe that he gives this away.

The Affiliate Masters Course is now also available as an ebook in PDF format. Click here to download your free copy.

Some companies run their own affiliate programs and some use affiliate management companies. These management companies provide a central location where you can sign up to sell products for several companies. The top affiliate management programs are:

• LinkShare
• cj.com(Commission Junction)
• ClickBank

It costs nothing to join these programs and they give you a wide range of products and services to choose from.

Some companies run their own affiliate programs. If there is a specific product you are interested in selling, go to that products website and look for a link that says "affiliates" or "partners."

Affiliate programs vary widely, so make sure you read any affiliate agreement carefully. A good affiliate program should have these features:

• free to join
• 15%-25% commission
• ability to track repeat customers (so you get commissions when your customer buys again)
• good affiliate support (prompt answers to your questions; ideas for boosting sales)