Originating in the USA several years ago with Amazon.com, affiliate marketing has quickly gained acceptance in North America as a viable and effective method of obtaining online screened and targeted site traffic, ongoing revenue generation and building consumer credibility.

This explosive growth and acceptance of affiliate marketing is also rapidly expanding into the European and Asian business community, including being translated into numerous languages.

Associate marketing or associate programs are simply revenue sharing arrangements established by sponsor companies selling a variety of online products and services. Web site owners are financially rewarded for sending referrals or customers to the business in numerous ways.

Financial compensation results to the website owner when a referral goes directly to the sponsors site and completes the sponsors terms of acceptance.

Terms of acceptance could include that the referral do any of the following: visiting a site, completing an application or obtaining a quote, registering for a free newsletter, downloading and installing software or making a consumer purchase.

The subsequent payment for the lead or referral are defined by the sponsor, and can range from a simple one time click through payment or a fixed commission rate, to a multi-tiered payment scheme resembling a MLM matrix that includes potential revenue from future lifetime purchases made by referrals of referrals.

Regardless of the payment method chosen, an equitable affiliate program results is a Win Win Win financial situation for all parties involved. The Sponsor receives additional site traffic and potential revenue from a new member; the Webmaster(s) receives revenue for providing a qualified lead; and the site visitor finds what they were looking for, at an acceptable price.

There are currently hundreds of thousands of Affiliate programs available, ranging from corporate sites such as Wal-mart to individual entrepreneurs promoting a single publication, and new competition is arriving daily. To help find complimentary Affiliate programs for your website or general information purposes, several free directories such as Associate Programs at http://www.associateprograms.com and Refer-it at http://www.refer-it.com maintain ongoing catalogues of new, existing and deleted affiliate programs.

These directory sites also contain a wealth of affiliate information, proven marketing tips and techniques, consumer ratings of programs and links to supportive software. The Associate Programs directory has links to thousands of archived and informative articles and includes a popular bi-monthly newsletter that includes the latest affiliate news and global success stories.

The Refer-it site ranks thousands of listed affiliate programs with a four star rating, that is extremely accurate concerning the reliability and integrity of each affiliate program offered.

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To maximize effectiveness, affiliate sites need to keep in mind some common sense suggestions:

1) Resist the temptation to add too many affiliate links. Affiliate link overkill confuses visitors and hurts credibility. You want your visitors to view your site as a value-adding destination and not just a cheesy sales site. Recommend links to products you have tried, or that come from good, solid companies. Don’t recommend something you don’t know just because you’re getting paid. Give your visitors the best advice and they will reward you.

2) If you write articles for your website, try not to include the affiliate links in the body of your articles: it will give the impression that you have a vested interest in recommending them. You want your visitors to trust your advice, so don’t turn your article into an excuse to promote products and make a commission. It’s OK to include affiliate links, but do it on a side bar or on a resource table. Whenever possible, link to your affiliate partners with text links (since banner ad click-through is at its lower rate ever, and people tend to ignore banners).

3) Include only affiliate links that are related to your business and the topic of interest to your visitors. Links to unrelated products will not generate good leads for the destination sites (and therefore won’t be a source of significant commissions for you), so they are best avoided.

4) Managing your affiliate programs can be a hassle if you have to deal with many different companies. Try to sign up with a site that administers many affiliate programs to chose from (one of the best out there are Commission Junction [www.cj.com] and Befree.com [www.befree.com]). These sites give you hundreds of affiliate programs to chose from, and act as a one-stop shop where you can sign up with multiple vendors using only one account and receiving one consolidated commission check.

5) Chose affiliate partners that offer long term cookies. A cookie is a mechanism that allows the destination site to know when a visitor is referred by your site. A long term cookie (for example, a three months cookie) means that a visitor who follows a link to one of your affiliate partners today but doesn’t purchase anything, can come back and purchase at anytime during the next three months and you will still be paid a commission. The best programs are those who offer unlimited cookies (although there are not so many of them around). However, a 90-day cookie or more is very good.

6) Link directly to the product page and not to the main page of the destination site. If you link to the main page, the visitor will have to find its way to the product and may not find it, making you lose commissions. By linking directly to the product, you will increase the prospects of the visitor buying the product (and of you making a commission). Many destination sites, like Amazon, recognize this fact and offer a higher commission to affiliates that link directly to the product pages than to those who only link to the main page.

Follow these simple guidelines and you will improve your chances of success with all your affiliate programs.

These people called “super affiliates” are just ordinary people like you but they do things differently from the rest of the crowd. They see the game from a different angle and they play it with a different strategy. How then do these super affiliates play their game?

The first strategy super affiliates adopt, is that instead of sending traffic to the site of the program/ product they are promoting, send it to theirs. You see, most people advertise their affiliate sites which people will go to and never buy anything.

Super affiliates understand that people are not inclined to buy anything at their first contact with the product, that they will need to be contacted on so many occasions before they can make the precious purchase. Super affiliates use this as an edge over their competitors.

When they drive traffic to their sites, they entice them to join their opt-in list by offering them something “nice” in return. After joining the list, the people can then be advertised to as long as the super affiliates want and so long the subscribers are not complaining.

So, it is very important for you to know that if you want to make it big in the affiliate game, you must have your own opt-in list. Stop spending money to send traffic away, instead bring them to your site and make them join your list by any means, it is very IMPORTANT.

Super affiliates do get to know the product they promote inside out. That is another advantage they exploit over their competitors. They buy the product they want to promote and they digest all the contents of the product so that they will be able to tell their prospects what is in it for them.

How many times have you signed up to promote a product you don’t even know about? Do you think if a sales person turns up at your door to tell you of a product, he cannot even tell its usefulness to you, will you buy from such a person? No! That is why some people will not buy whatever you promote, because they don’t really know what it will do for them and what it has done for you the promoter.

Get to know what you are promoting so that you can tell your prospects what the product is all about and how it can be of help to them. Your own personal testimonies matters a lot because it is what will motivate them to buy from you.

Another super affiliate’s game plan is that they stand out from the crowd.

Hello! How many times have you seen hundreds of people advertising the same product using same banners, classifieds and reports/ articles? If a prospect had seen so many of those at other sites, what gives you the impression that he will buy from you?

Super affiliates understand this, so they write their own classifieds, use their own banners and also write special reports to promote their programs.
Prospects always get drawn to those who are doing something different from the maddening crowd. So if you want to be upgraded to the level of a super affiliate, STAND OUT!

The EXTRA also stands out make one a super affiliate. They add extra(s) to the product they are promoting. People always want to make purchase from those who offered more value for their money.

Let’s assume ten affiliates approach you with the same product and nine of them offer the same thing and the last one chose to offer some extra bonuses to the product you are buying at the same amount. Which one will you probably buy from? The last one of course!

You can adopt this method too by offering a free report, course, freebie you got of the Net, an ebook or another product that is what the value of the one you are promoting. You have to offer MORE if you wish to sell MORE.

Lastly another super affiliate game plan I will wan to talk about, is that super affiliates always promote products in their chosen field.

How many times have you promoted some products in a field you don’t even know a hoot about? When you promote products in your own niche, you will find out that you will be more enthusiastic about it and even if you have not gone through the product before, you can easily recommend it to people.

The manner you will say something about it will just look as if you have already gone through use the product. Marketing a product in your own niche market, will always give you an added advantage because it is your area of expertise. never bother looking at which area is HOT!

Just check your own niche market out and then promote any product you find adopting all the strategies highlighted above and see what becomes of you. If you happen to be a tennis buff, and you happen to be promoting golf products, which you don’t know anything about? 🙁

What if a prospect decides to ask you a question about golf? 🙁 Do you think you will have anything to say? That is why it is important to stay in your own niche.

I believe you too can become a SUPER affiliate in no mean time, if you will adopt the game plan mentioned above. If others are doing it, why not you?

Never get discouraged by the mistakes of yesterday, look up to tomorrow with bright hope. NOW is the to get started!