These are desperate times. It might have taken getting laid off to whip your head into thinking "Gee, maybe I should have been working for myself." Maybe you still have a job and are considering various work at home opportunities. Regardless of your situation, If you are considering working from home keep reading.

Welcome, if you have come here hoping to learn how to free yourself from the nine-to-five escape the rat-race and work from home (or anywhere) , then you have come to right place.
There are (of course) dozens of opportunities for people who want to work from home including.

1. Consulting
2. Freelancing
3. Virtual personal assisting
4. Selling handicrafts
5. Assembling products
6. Affiliate Marketing

Online Profit Matrix is dedicated to helping people free themselves from the headaches of wage slavery through the last item on the list – affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is really nothing new. The concept of revenue sharing has been around for probably as long as commerce.
The concept is simple. Retailers pay independent third parties (people like you and me) commissions to promote their products.


Did you know, that 2006 report conducted by independent marketing research company Marketing Sherpa concluded that affiliates earned approximately $6.5 Billion dollars.


In fact, it is safe to say that many online retailers would not exist without affiliates to market their products. According to Forrester Research one fifth of Amazon.com’s sales are generated by affiliates.


Think of Affiliate marketing from a retailer’s perspective and you will quickly see its value. Imagine having an army of sales people selling your product for you and only having to pay them when a sale is made.

How does affiliate marketing typically work?

Affiliates generally sign up for affiliate programs in one of two ways. The first way is by signing up directly through an online retailer’s site. Amazon, Walmart, and Target are all examples of retailers that allow individuals to signup directly to their programs. The second method of becoming an affiliate involves going through an affiliate network.


With the second method the affiliate network manages all the relationships between advertisers (retailers) and publishers (you). In exchange for their management the affiliate network receives a small commission on each transaction.


Large affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, or Clickbank manage thousands of relationships between affiliates and advertisers.


Once an affiliate signs up to an advertiser’s program they are given a unique tracking link to identify the advertiser when a sale has been made through the affiliate.
This link works by placing a small file in the web user’s Temporary Internet Files directory. This file is a small program known as a cookie. Cookies have the ability to receive and transmit certain transactional data that notifies the retailer when a sale has been made or a payable action performed through the affiliates link.


Advertisers usually provide affiliates with advertising material (also known as creative) such as text and graphical ads. Affiliates then either (a.) Purchase advertising through various ad networks or (b.) Use the creative on their websites. In both cases the advertisement is linked to their affiliate identifier.

If Affiliate Marketing is So Great, Why isn’t Everyone Doing it?

While the concept of affiliate marketing is very sound it is much like anything else and requires some knowledge on the part of the affiliate and the advertiser.
What can go wrong? Advertisers can give affiliates poorly converting creative. This happens all the time. The marketing departments of big retailers still get things wrong much of the time and fail to understand what creative will entice consumers to buy their products.


Much of the time when this happens, new affiliates unaware of testing and tracking will publish an advertiser’s ad and spend money buying media only to find that the offer doesn’t convert. Conversions refer to the effectiveness of the offer. A couple of expensive advertising campaigns that fail are usually enough to deter the majority of newbie affiliates.


For instance if a user sees an affiliates ad, clicks on the ad, and is then taken to a special page to purchase the product, but fails to purchase the product that means that the prospect has not converted. Conversion is the process of getting a prospect to perform a desired action.

From an advertiser or retailer’s perspective one of the worst problems is affiliate fraud. Affiliate fraud is the unethical practice of getting unsuspecting prospects to perform actions that result in affiliate payouts.


The tactics of affiliate fraud are numerous. Often users will be lured into completing “free” offers in exchange for an incentive such as “complete 10 offers and win a free IPod.” Other techniques include creating a bogus webpage that frames and hides the real offer with a more appealing offer.


For example, an affiliate might be paid per lead simply to have people enter their name and email address for something like car insurance. Fraudulent affiliates sometimes frame the form portion of the legitimate offer with a phony offer something to the effect of “enter your name and email and get a free $20 gift card, etc…”
Another type of affiliate fraud is possible when affiliates purchase gift credit cards and then uses the cards to complete “shipping and handling only” offers with their affiliate links.


Wow, that’s scary, so is it possible to earn a full time living working from home as an affiliate marketer?



You bet it’s possible, and unlike freelancing, assembly, consulting, virtual personal assisting or nearly any of the other work at home opportunities affiliate marketing can be farmed out to outsourcers, done anywhere and anytime, without direct communication or accountability to clients or employers, and can earn six and even seven figure incomes.


Super affiliates such as Rosalind Gardner author of the Super Affiliate Handbook claims she regularly earns $50K per month through affiliate marketing.
Rosalind’s results aren’t typical but it is well within most people’s reach to easily earn a decent living working from home as an affiliate marketer provided they dedicate enough time to learning the best practices.


As you can see from the chart below published by AffStat an independent affiliate marketing benchmarking company monthly affiliate earnings are across the board. On the top of the chart 17% of affiliates reporting earnings in excess of $20k per month, 21% report earnings of $1k-$5k per month, and 46% report earnings of less than $500 per month.

In our research we regularly find affiliates earning between $70k and $200k per year. Research shows that it is clearly possible to work from home as an affiliate marketer and earn enough money to support yourself regardless of where you live.


Suffice to say that top affiliate marketers have devoted significant amounts of time and money developing their skills and have committed themselves to treating affiliate marketing as a serious business.


Online Profit Matrix has developed one of the simplest step-by-step systems for people seeking to discover how to prosper ethically with a home based affiliate marketing business. The Online Profit Matrix system is guaranteed to reduce the risks and increase your chances for success. This system will absolutely pay for itself, often within a very short time.


To try the Online Profit Matrix complete home study course for only $1 please go to www.OnlineProfitMatrix.com