If you're just starting your online career, affiliate marketing is for you. Affiliate, niche marketing has the absolute lowest level of risk for the beginner. The product cost you nothing and, including service, there's an almost infinite number to choose from.

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Tip! Affiliate Marketing is the most time saving way to start earning money.

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If you're not familiar with affiliate marketing, let me briefly explain it.

Affiliate marketers are independent "middle people". They work in that area between the customer and merchant. They introduce new, potential prospects and customers to a merchant. The merchant pays the affiliate marketer a commission on all sales resulting from this introduction.

How do marketers find merchants willing to pay them for finding customers? There are a number of ways; Two are by search engines and through affiliate networks.

Go to www.Google.com and type in "affiliate programs" without the quotes. I just did it and Google returned 286,000,000 pages. Some where in there is a product you can promote.

Scroll through the first few pages and make a list all the sites that interest you. Now go to these individual sites and see what they are offering. This is just a "get familiar with niche marketing exercise" not a select a product exercise. You can repeat this at Yahoo.com if you want to.

Affiliate networks are the best, especially for a beginner, way to get started. An Affiliate network acts as a "middle person" between merchants and affiliates marketer. They provide a service where merchants can list products, with the details such as the commission paid. Affiliate networks provide affiliate good ones also provide assurance that the affiliates marketer get the money they earn.

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Tip! Find A Good Product: It seems so simple people often overlook this crucial aspect of affiliate marketing. If people are clicking through from your page to your merchants page and they are not being converted. You're not earning money.

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There are many affiliate networks that beginners can chose to work with. A few reputable affiliate networks are:

• ClickBank - http://www.clickbank.com - Clickbank specializes in down loadable digital products. A highly reputable network that is easy to use and has good products.

• Commission Junction - http://www.cj.com - CJ is probably the most popular affiliate network and has a broad range of mainly physical products.

• LinkShare - http://www.linkshare.com - Linkshare has the largest pay-for-performance affiliate marketing network online.

• clixGalore - http://www.clixgalore.com - Clickgalore is one of the larger affiliate networks with over 4500 affiliate programs to choose from.

• Digital River - https://www.regnow.com - Digital River specializes in software products including games, anti-virus and anti-spam titles.

Add all the relevant programs to the list of those you gleaned from the search engines and you have an endless supply of products and services to promote.

Selecting Niche Affiliate Programs

Carefully select the affiliate program you associate with. Don't sign up for all of them visit each site and check each one out carefully; make sure you "read each merchant's terms carefully".

Some important points to consider before deciding which programed to promote:

• Commission rates vary greatly, check diligently to get the highest commission available. However, this must be weighed against other factors such as merchant reputation and sales conversion rate.

• There are number of commission type, any can pay well, just be sure you understand when and how you earn your money.

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Tip! Some affiliate marketing programs will pay you for sending them quality 'leads'. A lead is usually considered a visitor that will either sign up for a service or purchase a product.

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• The frequency of payment is important. Payment frequency can be weekly, bi- weekly, monthly, or quarterly. I've even heard of a six months payment frequency. Generally, you want your money ASAP-as soon as possible after the sale.

• Understand the minimum payout level. What is the minimum commission you must earn before the merchant is prepared to pay you. You don't get paid until a certain minimum dollar value is earned.

• Most merchants put cookie on a visitors computer. These cookies capture your referrals for a period of time. During this time a purchase made is a commission earned by you. Unfortunately, cookies expire after a specific amount of time.

* Cookies that stay the longest are the best for you. Few, if any, of your referrals will buy on the first visit. You want a long cookie time so that your referral can visit again and earn you a commission.

• Unless you have some experience, avoid merchants that have minimum traffic requirement. You don't want your account to be terminated while you are learning to send to send them traffic.

• Investigate the sales tools that the merchant makes available. It's in the merchant's best interest to provide as much help to you as possible. Merchants who provide good sales and marketing tools makes it easier and quicker to get started. Good tools also shows that the merchant values their affiliates.

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Tip! Eventually, diversify your efforts; don't rely solely on affiliate marketing.

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This is by no means a complete list of every thing to check. That is why I suggest that beginners start with a one of the reputable affiliate network. As I said earlier, select a good product or service and you're ready to start promoting it.

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And a final, Tip! Never Stop Learning. Make it a point to learn something new everyday as affiliate marketing is a constantly changing

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