Affiliate Marketing can be a Great Way To Make extra Income

Marketing on the Internet, or Internet Marketing as it is more widely known has no boundaries. It is a truly global opportunity and transactions in the millions are made every day worldwide.

It is something that can easily be done from home on a full time or part time basis and there is no need for any stock or inventory. If you consider a conventional small business, it is based in one geographical location and is therefore restricted to serving the people that live in or visit that location. Not so with Internet Marketing.

There are billions of people online these days and if you can get your product in front of only a small proportion of these people you will do very well.

There are various different business models that have proved to be successful in Internet Marketing.

A lot of people make a great deal of money selling useful software, essential services, creating and promoting their own products that fulfil a need in the market and finally Affiliate Marketing. The first three take a lot of effort and investment both in time and money to set up but they can provide a fantastic return if they are marketed properly.

Affiliate marketing is very easy to start. You don't even need a website although the most successful affiliate marketers usually have at least one.

So how can Affiliate Marketing be so easy? 

Well first it is important to understand how affiliate marketing works. There are many merchants of products and services out there that know they cannot reach the majority of their potential customers on the World Wide Web without spending vast sums of money. So they offer affiliate programs where anybody can sign up and earn a commission from any sales that are referred through them. This is a win-win for both parties.

There is usually an affiliate agreement that the affiliate has to agree to before they start promoting products or services on behalf of the merchants. This ensures that affiliates do not do anything to give the merchant a bad name.

The rate of commissions

It varies from a small 4-5% on physical goods through companies such as Amazon.com up to 100% in some cases. How can a merchant afford to pay 100% of their product cost you may be asking? Well it is because they gain the customer's name and email address which is very valuable for future sales and they often offer up-sells at the back-end where the affiliate will not receive any commission.

One of the most popular affiliate marketing web sites is Clickbank.com . They have have thousands of products and services that can be promoted and commissions ranging from 30 - 75%. Commissions are paid by cheque from Clickbank but other companies will offer alternative methods.