Affiliate programs are often perceived as complicated, confusing things that reek of pushy sales promotions.  Let’s first define what it is. According to Wikipedia Affiliate Marketing is primarily an Internet-based marketing practice where a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought to them by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. What they really mean is that affiliates get a “referral” fee for each person they refer who buys the product or service.

The benefit of being an affiliate is that it gives you content to share with your customers.  Once of the biggest questions I get from people is “I don’t have enough content”…”I need more content”.  Well, affiliates provide content PLUS it can earn you some money, which is also quite nice.  Now, you’re not going to retire on affiliate incomes, but it can add up. If you want to offer customers a bonus gift, some helpful information or an e-book, you might as well refer them to an affiliate and get credit for it.

Now, personally, I only promote products or services that I use and that I find helpful and valuable.  For example, when clients ask me about purchasing domain names, I recommend GoDaddy.com – which I use for all my domains registrations and hosting as well.  I send them a link to GoDaddy that includes my affiliate code.  If they decide to use GoDaddy then I get a few bucks for the referral.  It doesn’t cost my client anything extra.  And GoDaddy has a new happy customer (my client) and I’m a happy affiliate because I earned commission and helped my client out at the same time.  It is a recommendation that I would make even without the affiliate program – but since they have one, it’s silly not to take advantage of it.

You want to select affiliate programs and products that are interesting to your target audience.  Another example, I am asked all the time “What is the best online shopping cart”.  I use and recommend 1ShoppingCart and provide the link the same way I do with GoDaddy.  For email marketing platforms, I recommend SendPepper.  For PR and publicity, I recommend PRLeads.  These are things that my clients ask about.  These are quality services that I use, so I am familiar and comfortable with them.

To get started you can visit one of three sites that explain what this is all about and how to go about setting it up.  Check out ClickBank, PayDotCom and Commission Junction.