The Online Money Test

Making Money with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is the practice of advertising a third party product on your website, allowing you to get paid when that product is purchased as a result of the advertisement on your site.

How does affiliate marketing work?

There are many different types of affiliate schemes on the internet, but usually you will need to sign up to an 'affiliate network'. Affiliate networks allow both advertisers and website owners to register with them and they manage the tracking of visitors from the adverts on your site to the purchase of a product. A harmless cookie is placed on the computer of your visitor to track their progress and there will be an agreed amount of time with which that visitor needs to purchase the product since viewing the advertisement if you are to be paid.

How much money can I expect to make from it?

Many people claim to make most of the money earned from their site is from affiliate schemes. It really all depends on how many people you can get to react to adverts which you display and the amount you are paid when a product is purchased. If you are advertising products that your visitors have a strong interest in then you are likely to have some success.

Being successful with affiliate marketing

As already mentioned, it is better to make sure that your adverts are targeted towards the type of audience that you will be getting, so make sure you choose your affiliates carefully. For example, on this site I will be looking to advertise products which I think might help you to make money online (e.g. books about online money making), software to assist you with creating a popular website or perhaps software which can help you manage your accounts. There are so many affiliate networks out there that it shouldn't be hard to find products which are suited to your target audience.

Believe in the products you are advertising. – It is tempting to sign up to any old affiliate scheme in the hope that your visitors will be interested in them. Try to avoid doing this. If you completely believe in the products or companies that you are advertising then you are likely to get a much better response to those adverts.

What are typical rates of commission?

Rates of payment will vary greatly depending on the products, merchants and networks you are dealing with. Some schemes also offer what is known as residual income whereby you are paid everytime a customer you refer makes any puchase in future (i.e. not just the purchase of the product advertised as usual).

Some Affiliate Networks

Here are some of the most popular affiliate networks that I have registered with:

Commission Junction
Webgains
Affiliate Future
Affiliate Window

Registration with these immediately gives access to thousands of schemes which pay you to promote products.

Examples of Affiliate Schemes on this site

I am involved with a variety of different affiliate schemes on this site. Here is a list of what these are:

Amazon - Recommended books about making money online can be seen on the right throughout most of this site and are delivered by the Amazon affiliate scheme. When someone purchases one of these books after seeing them advertised on my site then I will receive a proportion of the sale (starting at 5%). As I sell more products this proportion can grow to as high as 9%.

Dataflame - Dataflame are the web hosting company that I have chosen to host my site. An excellent host, they offer a generous and very straight forward affiliate scheme whereby you will get paid £30 for any new customer that you refer to them. Once registered to their scheme they give you text or image adverts which you can place on your site. Registration is very simple and immediately you can start earning money with this scheme. If you are thinking of setting up your own website to start making money (or otherwise) then I recommend them as a cheap and reliable host with excellent online customer service.

Various Survey Sites - In my 'Making Money with Online Surveys' article, I have provided a list of the best paid survey sites. The links to these survey sites are affiliate links and I get paid a small commission (usually around £0.50) for every visitor who registers with them as a result of a referral from my site.

Paid Review Sites - In my 'Get paid writing reviews' article, I am signed up to an affiliate scheme with Shvoong. Shvoong pay you to write reviews of books and other products and for referring members to them, I can get a small referral fee.