How wonderful is that?

For example, what if you wanted to start an online business in web hosting. Imagine the start up costs involved with such a business. The cost of the equipment, staff, and advertising. Starting a web hosting company would be a very challenging thing to do for an individual on a limited budget. With affiliate marketing, you can make a pretty penny selling web hosting without owning a website, web company, or a single server. Instead of starting a company yourself, you can find an unlimited number of existing web hosting companies that offer affiliate programs. Some companies pay up to 100 dollars per sale! All you do is promote your special affiliate URL, or the web address that uniquely identifies that a lead or a sale came from you.

How can you promote an affiliate link without owning a website? The most common way affiliate marketers promote their links is by using Google Adwords. In the web hosting example, all you would have to do is start an eye catching Adwords campaign. Anytime a web surfer clicks on your Ad, it will go through your affiliate link to the company’s web page. If one hundred people click on your ad and one of them purchases web hosting, you pocket an easy $1oo dollar commission.

Many super affiliates make thousands just by promoting their affiliate URLs on Google Adwords or similar paid advertising campaign. Still, even more super affiliates turn a BIGGER profit by advertising their affiliate links on their websites, forums, or blogs. But how do they find the right affiliate programs to promote?

A lot of online retailers and service providers offer affiliate programs to help them grow, and why shouldn’t they? Imagine how well a company would do if they had hundreds of thousands of salesmen promoting their product. Companies can offer their own independent affiliate program or outsource the program to a third party whose sole purpose is to manage and track affiliate sales and payouts. Three of the most popular affiliate companies include Clickbank , Commission Junction , and Linkshare .

Clickbank deals primarily with info products and info services. Most commission rates per sale runs between 10% to 75%.

Commission Junction Represents major online businesses including GoDaddy.com, Weightwatchers.com, eBay.com, Bargain.com, and much more. Having an affiliate account with Commission Junction, also known as CJ, will allow you to sell mostly physical products, with exception to Web hosting and Domain companies.

LinkShare – Similar to CJ, most of Linkshare’s businesses deal with actual physical goods which have to be shipped to
the buyer.

One of the primary benefits of dealing with a third party affiliate company such as Clickbank, Commission Junction, and Linkshare is that your performance statistics are handled by an independent third party. You don’t have to worry about anybody ‘messing’ with sales numbers or commissions.

But which affiliate program is the best to promote? How do you know which product is a hot seller and which one is being “over promoted”? Click Ad Equalizer is cutting-edge, state-of-the-art software that can give you the advantage you need when choosing which affiliate programs to promote and profit from. Click Ad Equalizer will show you exactly which products affiliates are selling, which are the most popular, and which are the least popular for every related keyword for that product. You instantly know what’s working and what’s not. Click Ad Equalizer let’s you know exactly what products are hot and which products are selling for each related keyword. The keywords are displayed in an easy-to-read pie graph so you can quickly determine whose affiliate program to join, which affiliates to contact, or who is your competition.

In other words, for any keyword you look up, Click Ad Equalizer you can find the right affiliate program to promote for any niche product or service.

One of the best ways to promote an affiliate program is to write about it. Many affiliate marketers use their blogs to write reviews on the affiliate program they are promoting. Why is this an effective way of promoting an affiliate program? Simply put, writing product reviews if a form of targeted advertising. When a person does a search for a particular product they typically look for a consumer review first. The more detailed and descriptive the review, the more likely they will purchase the product.

Want to try it out?

First, find a unique product that is not too well known. If the product is too popular then chances are there are a lot of other affiliate marketers competing with you. Second, choose products downloadable products or online services. Examples include ebooks, software, and online membership sites.

How do you write a review without knowing anything about the product. The first and most logical answer would be to purchase and try out the product yourself. If that’s not possible, email the program’s support and request additional information about the product. Lastly, you could research the particular product and write a review based on your research.

When writing a product review, do your best to be as detailed about the product as possible. For example, you would want to explain what the product was, pros, cons, and user opinions based on past user’s testimonials. Remember to place emphasis on the value of a product, the more valuable a product becomes in the reader’s eyes, the greater the chances they will purchase the product regardless of product cost. It is important NOT to make your review sound ‘salesy’. In other words, your review should be as objective as possible, allowing the reader to make up his/her own mind whether or not to purchase the program.

If done correctly, writing affiliate product reveiws can be one of the smartest techniques to increasing your monthly commission. Product reviews produce targeted traffic that are willing to buy.

Creating an affiliate program for your business is one of the most effective ways of marketing your product. It’s a simple concept. You basically pay affiliate marketers a commission anytime they sell your product. You’re probably thinking to yourself, ‘Why would I want to split my profits up with anybody?’ The answer is simple: You are participating in a form of advertising that is guaranteed to succeed.

First of all, if you offer a fair affiliate program then hundreds of affiliate marketers will line up to promote and market your product for you. Imagine hundreds of affiliates linking to your product, setting up pay per click campaigns, and using other methods to promote your product.

How much do you think it would cost to do that all yourself? The best part is that you only pay an affiliate marketer AFTER he or she has made a sale, so you’re guaranteed a sale before you pay a dime. Pretty sweet, isn’t it?

If you want your products to fly off the shelves then you should consider setting up a tantalizing incentive program. Here are some ideas that will get affiliate marketers flocking to sell for you.

First, you want to make sure that you are going to pay your affiliates well for their time and effort. Be fair and generous. If that’s hard for you to accept, just think that you’ll be making 50% of a sale off of the hard work and effort from your affiliate. You will not get the best and brightest super affiliate to work for you if you pay them nickel and dimes.

Second, provide your affiliates with a set of promotional tools to work with such as banner ads, sales letters, and sample classified ads. Once again, the benefit of this is that you will have hundreds of affiliates displaying your advertising on their web page or blogs. If an affiliate has to spend an enormous amount of time on advertising material for your product, he or she will walk away from you.

Third, offer outstanding support. Provide an email or messaging number for your affiliates to reach you incase they have a question about your product or program. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt to email newsletters to your affiliates just to keep in touch. An easy way to lose your affiliates is to ignore them, so make sure you keep the lines of communication open.

Last, it wouldn’t hurt to look around and check out your competitor’s affiliate program and then match or exceed theirs. Remember, you want the best and brightest working hard to promote your product, not your competitors.

If you keep all of these tips in mind, you will gain a giant workforce fighting to sell or promote your product. You will be rewarded with the hand off, residual money making benefit of affiliate marketing.