I was browsing a few blogs yesterday and came across a nice Affiliate Marketing 101 post over at FrugalPinoy. It was a good reminder that not everyone reading this blog might know exactly what affiliate marketing is, or know how to get started so here’s a quick beginner’s guide.

What exactly is affiliate marketing?

Basically it means promoting someone else’s products or service, and getting paid for each sale you generate. There are literally thousands of products you can promote from informational products such as ebooks and membership site subscriptions, to physical products like books, DVDs or clothing. In fact, there are countless types of product and service with affiliate programs covering just about every niche imaginable… If you have a site on just about any topic, the chances are there are appropriate affiliate products you could promote.

So does that mean I need a website?

It’s not essential to have your own website, but you’ll certainly be more successful if you do. Even a blog at blogger.com or Wordpress.com would be a great start, although the control over your own hosted site would be better. If you’re just getting started I would highly recommend your own, self hosted Wordpress installation. You can set up Wordpress as a CMS, and use your site as a blog, a review site, a portal and more…

How do I find products to promote?

While lots of companies have their own affiliate programs, you might want to start with an affiliate service where you can search and manage lots of different products from one place. Here are a few starting points.

TheSecondTier is a free to join affiliate program and training center run by SublimeNet. They offer a great range of Internet Marketing products and the commissions are very good. The reason I’m starting with this site however is due to their fantastic free tutorials and training. Even if you have no intention of promoting Internet Marketing products you should join just for the great free training and tools.

ClickBank is probably the most well known affiliate program for information products. They have thousands of products and you can search or browse by keyword or category. Again ClickBank is free to join, and well respected within the industry.

Commission Junction is like ClickBank for physical products. Since they are more costly to produce and ship than info products the commissions tend to be lower (in terms of percentage) but depending on your niche, you may well find suitable products to promote here.

How do I get paid?

Depending on the program, and the product you are promoting, you will earn a commission (probably between 5% and 75% of the sale price) whenever a customer you send to the site buys a product. You don’t need to worry about shipping, or customer service which is all handled by the seller, your commission is purely for finding the customer. You will then get paid once or twice a month any commissions you are owed by cheque or electronically (such as through Paypal). Check individual programs for specific details.

How much can I earn?

The good news is you can earn as much as you want, and are willing to work for. Top affiliates can earn many tens of thousands each month. The bad news is that won’t happen overnight (at least not unless you already have a very popular website or responsive email list). The first thing you need is traffic, or visitors to your website. As I wrote yesterday, to best way to get that is by writing lots of great content. Then you can start to promote products as an affiliate by recommending them to your visitors.

OK I want to get started - so what now?

Well first I strongly suggest that you head over to The Second Tier and go through some of their free training. There are lots of archived training calls you can download and listen to which will teach you all the basics. Then get a web presence, a site or blog, where you can start building traffic. Once you have those 2 things in place you’re well on your way to making your first sale!