Affiliate marketing has been around for many years now. While some people have made millions in a short span of time, others may not have been so lucky. If you wish to get started and make money online then here is a step-by-step guide for you.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing basically revolves around a simple concept. You have a set of products, which need to be sold and promoted online. Therefore, you hire a group of marketers or sales personnel called affiliates, who will promote and sell products for you. Whenever a sale happens, they get a commission of the sales. This is basically how affiliate marketing works. However, things are not as cut and dry as they seem and there is a lot that goes into an affiliate program to make it successful.

What is needed to become an affiliate?

There are no real qualifications needed to start becoming an affiliate marketer. All that you really need is a passion to sell products online and a knack for enticing customers to visit the affiliate site. You will surely need to have your own site, where you can sell and refer the affiliate products. Once you sell products successfully, you can get commissions from the merchant site. There are also many websites, which provide commissions when customers simply visit the site. Thus, even if the sale does not happen, you still get a commission.

Affiliate networks: the powerful answer

One of the best ways to start attracting massive commissions online is by joining affiliate networks. There are affiliate merchant sites, which have a built-in affiliate networks on them. Joining such sites allows you an opportunity to tap into numerous affiliate programs, thereby maximizing your earning potential.

Payment methods:

There are many ways in which affiliate marketers get paid. These depend on the individual protocol and policy of the merchant site.

- CPM or Payment per impression: In such a scheme you get paid based on how many times the banner is shown on your affiliate site. Usually, the payment is based on how many thousands of times the banner gets displayed on your site.

- Payment on sale: This payment model revolves around the fact that you get a commission only when an actual sale happens on the merchant site. This is the most restrictive model out of the others available today as you have to wait for a sale to get a commission. However, this model is one of the most popular today because you get paid for your job results. More sales you make - higher income you will earn.

- Payment on click: In this model, you get payment as soon as a visitor clicks through to the merchant site from a banner or advert you have put up. So, if you are using an advert to divert traffic to the merchant site and a visitor clicks on it then you get a commission. The amount of money you can earn through this method all depends on how attractive the banner or advert is. The more enticing it is the more the chances of visitors clicking on it.

Click2sell.EU (http://www.click2sell.eu) affiliate network has an amazing number of affiliate programs available to promote which you can use to earn plenty of money. They have an assortment of products to select from to help diversify your income.