All internet marketers are in the business to make money. Anyone who says otherwise is fooling you! Most people want to do a good job for their buyers, of course, but in the end it is still a business.

Profit is one of the major determining factors as to whether a marketing campaign was successful or not. Of course, you first must choose a great, thriving niche.

The second thing you have to do is find the right affiliate program that will serve the needs of the customers you are focusing on and still pay you a good commission. Here are some tips to remember when choosing an affiliate marketing program:

How high is the percentage of commission?

There are some programs which offer 4-8% commission while there are others that offer 35-50%, so there can be a large variation depending on the end product and the company.

Just because a commission is lower does not necessarily mean that it is not a good program to choose. You need to think about the projected traffic so that you can decide if there will be enough buyers to make up the profits in volume.

What tools does the merchant provide?

While it is possible to sell a product without the use of marketing tools, it certainly makes your job more difficult. Some vendors provide great sales tools such as banners, videos and sample articles that you can rewrite. The more tools you have, the quicker you can throw together a marketing campaign without a lot of upfront work.

Tracking:

You want to know what kind of tracking the vendor has in place for your sales. Have there been any complaints about the vendor not paying or tracking properly?

What is the length of the cookie?

This means if someone goes to the vendor's site using your affiliate link, how long will they honor any sales from that computer address? Some programs are only 24 hours while others will honor a sale up to 60-365 days!

As with any other business, it pays to do your research up front so there are no bad surprises later.

You want to choose solid, reputable companies so that you can depend on them and the customers you sell to can depend on the product as well. This just makes good business sense, and will help you protect all of the hard work you do!