Remember this diagram?

Most Internet Marketers assume the "The Affiliate" role to earn their money online. This essentially means that you are promoting other companies (also known as merchants) products in exchange for a commission. These commissions vary based on the product or service that you are promoting but typically range within the 5-75% range.

For example, our affiliate program offers members 50% recurring commissions. This equates to $20 each month in commissions for each referral you send our way!

So where do you find these affiliate programs? There are two places. Affiliate Networks & Independent Affiliate Programs (not within a network). We will explain these below.

Top Affiliate Networks

There are all kinds of suggestions on how to get started in making sales online as an Internet marketer, but if you don't have a product to promote it can make the process of making money that much tougher.

When you are looking for products to promote you should start by browsing through some of the larger Affiliate Networks. These networks are composed of 1000's of companies that host their affiliate program through the network. This means that you can go to a single location and get access to many affiliate programs.

Nearly all successful Internet marketers have used affiliate networks at one time or another and most probably still do. The following networks are where you will find the BEST products to promote online.

• Clickbank
• LinkShare
• Commission Junction
• ShareASale
• Performics
• Google Affiliate Network
• Link Connector
• Hydra Network
  
  

Note:If your country is not accepted by one or more of the affiliate networks, do not worry. There are many opportunities outside of these networks that will accept you.

These networks are great places to find a product to match the research that you have done. You'll find that there are literally tens of thousands of products that are readily available for you to promote.

There is some terminology that you need be familiar with when using these networks. Often times the payment structures of affiliate programs will vary from company to company. The main ones are Pay-Per-Sale (percentage of flat fee), Pay-Per-Lead, and Pay-Per-Click.

Pay-Per-Sale is the most common payment structure and is used within all networks. Basically, pay-per-sale is just like it sounds. You earn commissions based on "sales" that you can drive to merchant websites. These commissions will either be paid as a percentage of the overall sale or as a flat-fee. Commission percentages range from 1% - 90%, and up to $500 for the flat-fee structure (depending on the program). This can easily amount to huge commissions!

Pay-Per-Lead is less common, but is a common payment structure used by many networks. A lead is an action that takes place and is predefined by the merchant. For example, a lead could be a free trial sign-up or a completed application form. These will vary based on the company.

Pay-Per-Click as a payment structure is not very common these days as companies are very aware that click-fraud does exist, and many affiliates were taking advantage of this structure through outsourced click-farms. It is exactly how it sounds - you get paid for every click that you send to the merchant company's website. This structure is VERY rare and you will barely ever come across a company willing to pay you for every click you send them.

One of the main Affiliate networks that marketers use because of its simplicity is Clickbank. Clickbank has the largest network of digital info products, and you will find everything from dog training manuals, to e-books on how to make money online. We have dedicated an entire resource to this network:

We have also created a pretty neat (and highly valuable) tool that you can use to research products on Clickbank. Wealthy Affiliate's Clickbank Research Tool will allow you to see which products are hot sellers, which ones are not performing so well, and will also allow you to quickly grab your affiliate links right within the application. Please use the following link to check it out.

We will tell you this, though. People get too caught up using Clickbank and fail to utilize the other large affiliate networks that are available. There are many "tangible" products that you can promote on other networks and often times have a much better "brand" than the products on Clickbank. Please do not overlook the other networks when searching for affiliate programs and products to promote.

How Affiliate Links Work

One thing that is often blurry to new marketers is how affiliate links really work, and the different types of linking strategies that we can implement as affiliates. Affiliate links are unique links that are given to you when you sign-up to a particular affiliate program or affiliate network. These links are unique to you, allowing companies to track your performance automatically within their affiliate systems.

For example, here is the format of an affiliate link at Wealthy Affiliate:

Your Affiliate Link ==> http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com?a_aid=YOURID

"YOURID" will be replaced with your own unique affiliate ID. To get a full list of your own affiliate links, go to the following page:

WA Affiliate Links & Tracking

This link is unique to you and only you. If you send someone to our website through your affiliate link and they end up joining Wealthy Affiliate, our system will automatically award you with a commission in your account. This is because our system understands who you are based on your affiliate link and this is the same way all other affiliate programs work.

Below we have provided a couple of diagrams on different linking techniques. The first one outlines how the process would work if you were linking to the merchant page from your own web page, and the second technique outlines what is known as direct linking, or linking straight to the merchant page from your ad (which doesn't require you to have your own website but is not nearly as effective).

Intermediate Website Linking (better)

Ad -> Webpage-> Affiliate links on page -> link to merchant page

Direct Linking (not as effective)

Ad -> Direct link (using your affiliate link) -> Merchant page

Independent Affiliate Programs

As an affiliate, you are not bound to using Affiliate Networks only. Many companies serve their affiliate programs "in-house", meaning that they do not have a 3rd party company (such as Clickbank or CJ.com) managing their program.

The common question we get regarding independent affiliate programs is "Are they safe to use?" Absolutely, and if you did not realize this already, the WA affiliate program is operated in-house by us, so we are considered an Independent affiliate program.

Here is how you can go about finding affiliate programs within any industry using Google, or Yahoo:

1. Do a search for "industry_name affiliate program". For example, if you were looking for affiliate programs related to the weight loss industry, you would search "weight loss affiliate program"
2. Your search results will reveal related affiliate programs to the "industry_name" that you typed in
3. Go through the affiliate programs and sign-up to the ones that best suit you and your website promotions

You are really cutting yourself short if you do not take advantage of a combination of affiliate networks and independent affiliate programs. There are MANY great independent affiliate programs!