Affiliate Programs - An Introduction

Most of you are already familiar with affiliate programs,
but for those who are not, here's a brief description:

In essence affiliate programs or associate programs
are revenue sharing arrangements where companies
(merchants, which would be you) pay webmasters commission
for sending them customers.

Webmasters are paid a commission if the person they refer
buys a product or service, (Pay Per Sale - Most Popular Option),
clicks on an affiliate link (Pay Per Click - Less
popular due to fraud) or simply fills out a form
(Pay Per Lead - Also Very Popular).


Basically affiliate programs are programs that enable
people to sell other peoples products for a percentage
of the sale.


So let's say you sell a book on how to improve your
marketing skills on the Internet and you've exhausted
your pool of advertising sources and you need fresh leads.
The best way to go about this would be to start your
own affiliate program and pay people a percentage
of the sale.

For example, if your book is selling for $27, don't
be afraid to give people 50 to 60% of the profits
of each sale.

Why? Because it's costing you nothing in advertising
and you get to keep the customer for life.
And you're better of with 40% of the sales price
then with no sale at all, right?!

Running an affiliate programs is a great idea,
because it's risk free.
You only pay your affiliates when they get their
leads to perform an action (IE, buy something from you)
so it costs you nothing...