There are three key decisions any potential affiliate marketer needs to make before starting an affiliate marketing business. In making these three decisions your affiliate marketing business will go a long way in being successful because you will start out organized and ready to grow your affiliate marketing business.

What product niche are you going to promote?

The first key decision to make when starting out in affiliate marketing is what type of product are you going to promote in order to make money as an affiliate marketer. Making this decision is not an easy one, but one rule of thumb is starting with a product niche you know something about. If you already know something about a product niche, you are going to be better able to market it. Consumers like knowledgeable sales people and if you know your product, potential buyers will be more inclined to buy it.

If you want to become an affiliate marketer for a product category that you know nothing about, that is fine, but be prepared to learn about your product before you market it.

Are you going to have a website or just use an affiliate link?

While it is not necessary to have a website for many affiliate products, it is a good idea because you can market several products for the same niche on one website, which increases the potential for sales. Another reason to have a website is that you can offer much more for your potential customers than simply using an affiliate link. Websites are great ways to offer reviews of products or other related information.

Having a website of your own could also potentially save you money in advertising. Search engine advertising is getting much stricter about advertising affiliate links. One search engine will only allow you to display the affiliate link and not the product website, which means fewer potential buyers since consumers are less apt to click on these links. Additionally, affiliate links usually have a lower quality score, which means you could be paying more per click than an affiliate advertiser who has their own website.

How are you going to advertise?

Successfully marketing an affiliate product and selling products depends on getting people to click on your affiliate link and then purchasing the product. In order for that to happen you have to get people to your site or your affiliate link. How to do that can be easy or difficult depending on your advertising budget.

Ideally, getting free traffic to your site is the best way to achieve sales because the cost per conversion is low since no money would be spent in advertising. However, getting free traffic is very time consuming and depends on a lot of factors. You could use a free traffic exchange, but from my experience, this does not yield buyers.

The easiest way to get traffic to your site and advertise your product is to pay for it. You have several options to pay for advertising. Two of the easiest means of advertising include pay-per-click search engine advertising and email marketing. Before you pay for advertising, though, do some research into the means you choose. Become knowledgeable so you don't end up losing money.

After you make these decisions and begin your affiliate marketing business, the real work actually begins because once your get your business up and running you still need to maintain your business and learn about different marketing strategies and change as internet marketing changes.