Affiliate Marketing News: What Is It and Where To Find It?

By Alexander Bee in Affiliate Marketing on May 21st, 2008

-->

by Alexander Bee

In the coming days and weeks I will publish a sequence of articles trying to cover all steps to a lucrative business of affiliate marketing. This is the first article and it is intended to explain the idea of affiliate marketing to people who are just starting to look for information on the subject. I will also show some ways to find a product to choose to promote.

This first article is not for experienced marketers neither is it for those who know and understand affiliate marketing and know how to find good products, as it covers only the essential basics. My following articles will hopefully discuss more complex steps and thus may be of interest even to experienced marketers.

I will start by explaining what affiliate marketing is. Well, I like to say that Affiliate Marketing is to the 21st century what the Gold Rush was to the 19th century. The gold is there - one only needs to find it. But, on a more practical note: Affiliate Marketing is simply an agreement between you and a merchant or a product publisher, that says that the merchant will pay you a percentage of each and every sale he or she makes to a customer that you have driven to their web site.

The “product” may be physical - from a bar of soap to a private plane; it may be digital - anything one can instantly download from the Internet: ebooks, software, video courses etc.; and it may be a subscription or a registration to a newsletter or a list. Tens of thousands of companies pay their affiliates a commission for a sale, a registration or a lead.

As I said, the treasures are there, all over the world of affiliate marketing. The question is how one discovers it. It is a fact that many newbies in this field find that their first step - choosing the right product - is the hardest step on the road to successful affiliate marketing.

I will show you a few ways to find it:

1. Promote a product that you have bought online and really liked. The way to do it is to go back to the merchant’s website or sales letter, look for a link that says “affiliates” and click on it. There you will find how to become an affiliate and what the terms are. Subscribe for free and start promoting the product.

2. Start thinking about your hobbies, things you are interested in, things you have knowledge about. Perhaps you are a member of some forums in which you discuss your passion. This will help you a lot later, in your promotions. Let’s say you like basketball; you know everything about the game, the teams, and the players. Start searching for products that are associated with basketball, find their affiliate programs and start promoting them.

3. Do a little research on the Internet. Think of products that do very well in the United States but are unknown to Europeans, become an affiliate and promote the product using Google Adwords campaigns in Europe. You can do the same with a product that you’ve discovered in Europe, or any foreign country, and promote it in North America.

4. Follow the popular products on your kids’ list. Talk to them and to their friends or to any group of teenagers to find out what they like. These are usually best selling items.

5. Read popular magazines and see what new fashions and products they report about.

6. And, obviously: become an affiliate at Commision Junction, ClickBank and other such services. Their database has thousands of products and they’ll let you know what the best sellers are.

In Article 2 I will describe the second step on the way to rewarding affiliate marketing.

About the Author:

Are You Ready For 15 Streams of Self-Generating Income? Get Your FREE Affiliate Program News AND Your FREE Marketing eBook, Now! Enjoy $197 Worth of Amazing Bonuses.