I'm sure you've heard that one before, and you'll hear it time and time again. The sad part is, more than anything it just takes doing, and not so much thinking. So many "newbies" get caught up in all the theory of internet marketing. The best place to learn is the school of hard knocks. Here is a quick and dirty battle plan to get you started without breaking the bank. With a little luck, this is an "earn while you learn" plan.

Step 1 is to get a Clickbank affiliate id. If you have not heard of Clickbank, in a nutshell it is a large affiliate manager for publishers of digital media products. If you have written an ebook, or created a series of videos on some topic, you can enlist Clickbank to handle the payment processing for you. In addition to handling the payment processing, Clickbank has over 100,000 active affiliates ready to market products in every niche from dog training to how to quit smoking. Visit their website and get your free affiliate id.

Step 2 is to find a niche within the Clickbank Marketplace that catches your attention. There might be several, and that would be good. Make a note of any product that pays at least $20 in commission per sale. You'll want to start with a list of a few products. Visit the websites for each product and notice if the sales letter catches your attention and draws you in. If it does, chances are you have a winner so keep that one in your portfolio.

Step 3 requires a little bit of startup cash. Now that you have found your products, you have to somehow promote them. I, and many others, love Google Adwords for this. Nowhere else on the internet can you get such immediate response and feedback for your campaigns. You can signup for a free Google Adwords account from adwords.google.com.

Running an Adwords Campaign is a large subject in and of itself. The main points to remember are: keep your daily spending down to a limit that you can afford ($10 per day is good to start), look at other ads that are running for the keywords you are going to use and create ads that are similar (not the same) as those that are doing well.

Step 4 is one of the most important steps, and it involves doing your keyword research. Fortunately, Google provides a great keyword tool with your Adwords account. If you haven't gotten your Adwords account, now is the time. Click on the Tools Link, go to the Keyword tool and type in some keywords that you think customers would use to search for your product. Remember to think like your potential customers. What problem are they trying to solve? Be as specific as possible. Don't use "dog training" when you could use "training dachshunds." Try and keep your keyword phrases at 3 words or more. That should keep them tightly focused.

Step 5 is to set up your first campaign. Choose the product you feel the most passionate about and start a new campaign in Google Adwords. Remember to keep your daily spend limit low, and remember to turn off content matching. Google will have it on by default, and that can potentially cost you your entire day's spending limit almost immediately.

When you type in your keywords, you'll want to group related keywords together in different ad groups. You will see this in action when you get to your Google Adwords account page. On a piece of paper, write down all of your keywords and group them together into at least 5 groups of similar keywords. Remember, think like your customer. What problem are they trying to solve, and how can you solve it? If they type "training pit bulls" into the search box and your ad for "How to Train Dachshunds" comes up, they won't click on your ad, and you'll be penalized for being irrelevant. When deciding on bid amount for keywords, I use the 1% rule. I figure that if a product makes me a $20 commission, and I can count on one out of 100 people who click on my ad to buy the product, then I can't spend more than 20 cents per click. This way, you are much less likely to lose money on your campaigns. Some campaigns will make better than 1%, and those you want to keep and improve on. Those that are less than 1% you want to dump after about 300 clicks.

When you do have a campaign that's starting to make a little money, try split testing alternate ads and trying to improve your click-through-ratio (CTR.) This number is all important to Google, and the better yours is, the less you'll have to pay per click. As your campaigns improve and the CTR goes up, lower your max bid so your profit margin can increase.

It is actually possible to profit in one day from this method, I've seen it happen. Once you have a little bit of profit, start on the next product and repeat the method until you are making as much as you want. Don't be discouraged when some campaigns flop. You can always turn them off and start new ones. You will hit one that's a winner soon enough.