What is Affiliate Marketing?

Have you ever wanted to make money online without having to stock products and do all the necessary accounting, credit card transactions, and shipping? Then affiliate marketing just might be what you're looking for.

Affiliate marketing is a profit-sharing business venture linking a webmaster and an online business. The website owner will position advertisements on his websites to sell the merchant's goods and/or to send possible clients to the merchant's website, and then profits are shared accordingly.

There are three ways to earn money through affiliate marketing:

Getting paid for clicks - Whenever a potential purchaser leaves the affiliate website by "clicking" on the link leading to the merchant's website, a certain amount of money is deposited in the affiliate's account. This amount can be pennies or dollars depending on the product and amount of the commission.

Getting paid for completed sales - Whenever a sale is made as a result of advertising on the affiliate's website, a percentage, or commission, is deposited into the affiliate's account.

Getting paid for sign-ups - Whenever a potential client registers at the merchant's website as a result of the advertisement on the affiliate's account, a previously determined amount is deposited into the affiliate's account.

For many website owners, this is a good way to make some additional cash by doing something once and then continuing to reap the rewards over time. All it involves is placing an ad on your website. There's no special selling or promotion of any kind. The affiliate leverages additional income off of the website promotion he is already doing.

It's also beneficial to the merchant. He doesn