Making Money Through Affiliate Relationships

Oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty stated, “I’d rather one percent  of the efforts of 100 men than 100 percent of the efforts of 1 man.”  He also stated, “money is like manure.  You have to spread it around or it smells.”  So what does this have to do with affiliate marketing and what is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the revenue sharing between online advertisers/merchants and online publishers/salespeople, whereby compensation is based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales, clicks, registrations or a hybrid model.

Many sites on the internet earn more income from affiliate sales than they do from sales of their own products.  Some site owners don’t even sell their own products; they only market the products of their affiliates.  Take a look at most any site and you’ll see what I mean. 

The Amazon associates program was the first online affiliate program of its kind when it launched in 1996.  Today, it is the largest and most successful online affiliate program with over 1,000,000 members world-wide.  They pay 10% in referral fees on all qualifying revenue made through their links.

An affiliate relationship with major site owners can raise a virtually unknown to a major player in a short period of time.  This is the reason intelligent marketers know that affiliate relationships are a smart business decision.  Instead of the marketer paying for the advertising, his affiliates take care of that when they market their own site--a win/win situation. 

An example of an affiliate only website would be fatwallet.com  Here you will see links to anything from books and magazines, computers, video games to Viagra.  They even pay you $5 in cash back when you sign up to learn more about their hot deals.

Some sites provide information only and use their affiliate status to generate income. 

Starting a site can be something even a novice to the internet can do.  With a little bit of ingenuity and creativity, you could be on your way to a part-time or even full-time income thru just your affiliate  relationships.

See what I mean about J .Paul Getty’s quote in my first paragraph:  you have many people carrying the burden of advertising with affiliate marketing, thus taking the burden off the product seller.  And by having many affiliates marketing for him, many people may see his advertising several times before they purchase.