This interesting article addresses some of the key issues
regarding Affiliate marketing. A careful reading of this material
could make a big difference in how you think about
Affiliate marketing.

Are you a webmaster in need of additional income? Or
are you planning to set up an online business but you still
don't have any product to sell? If so, affiliate marketing
may be the best solution for your problems. With affiliate
marketing, you won't need to worry about the products you
have to sell. All you need to have is a website with
sufficient contents that are related to the products of a
certain online company offering affiliate programs.
By becoming a member of the program, or by becoming an affiliate,
you can start earning a certain amount of money right away!

Affiliate marketing is some sort of business relationship
established between a merchant and his affiliates. In affiliate
marketing, an affiliate agrees to direct some traffic to a
merchant's website. If that traffic is converted into some
kind of action, like a visitor purchasing a product on the
merchant's website or a visitor becoming a lead for the company,
the affiliate who directed the traffic will be compensated.
Compensation may take the form of either a percentage sales
commission for the sales generated or a fixed fee predetermined
upon the application of the affiliate on the merchant's
affiliate program.

Promising a lot of benefits both for the merchants and the
affiliates, affiliate marketing has become one of the most
popular online marketing methods today. In fact, almost every
merchant or retailer site today offers an affiliate program that
any one can join into. Most retailers would entice people to
become affiliates or members of their program by promising great
benefits like large commissions, lifetime commissions, click
through incomes and a lot of other benefits. But would all
these affiliate programs bring off the same benefits?

Most affiliate programs would pay you, as an affiliate, a
one-time commission for every sale or lead you brought to the
merchant's website. Commissions for this kind of affiliate
programs are usually large, ranging from 15% to a high of about
60%. Other affiliate programs would pay you a fixed fee for every
click through or traffic you send to the merchant's site.
Programs like this often pay a smaller fee for every click through,
usually not getting any larger than half a dollar. The good
thing about this kind of program, however, is that the visitor
won't have to purchase anything in order for the affiliate to
get compensated.

Another type of affiliate program is the residual income affiliate
program. Residual affiliate programs usually pay only a small
percentage of sales commission for every sale directed by the
affiliate to the merchant's site. This commission often comes
only in the range of 10% to 20% sales commission. Because of
this, many people ignore residual affiliate program and would
rather opt for the high paying one-time commission affiliate
program. Are these people making a mistake, or are they making
the right decision?

We can't tell, for sure, if people are making a mistake by choosing
a high paying one-time commission affiliate program. But we can
definitely say that they are making a large mistake if they ignore
residual affiliate programs. Residual affiliate programs would
indeed pay at a lower rate, but merchants offering such kind of
programs would generally pay you regular and ongoing commissions
for a single affiliate initiated sale! That means, for the same
effort you made in promoting a particular affiliate program, you
get paid only once in a one-time commission program, and a regular
and ongoing commission for a residual program!

So, are the benefits of promoting residual affiliate programs
clearer to you now? Or are they still vague? If they are still
vague, then let's make them a bit clearer with this example.

Suppose there are two online merchants both offering web hosting
services on their sites. The first merchant offers a one-time
commission type of affiliate program that pays $80 for every
single affiliate initiated sale. The second merchant also offers
an affiliate program, but this time a residual affiliate program
that pays only $10 for every single affiliate initiated sale.
As an affiliate, we may get attracted at once at what the first
merchant is offering, as $80 is definitely a lot larger than $10.
But by thinking things over before actually getting into them,
one may be able to see that the second merchant is offering us
more opportunity to earn a larger amount of money.

Supposed you have directed traffic to the merchant and it converted
into a sale, you'll get paid once by the first merchant for the
sale you have initiated. But with the second merchant, you'll get
paid monthly for as long as the customer you have referred to the
merchant continues to avail of the web hosting service. That
means that for the same effort of getting one customer to avail
of the merchant's service, you get paid monthly in residual
affiliate programs while you only get paid once in a one-time
commission type of affiliate programs.

So, are residual affiliate programs worth promoting? Definitely
yes, because you virtually get more money from these types of
affiliate programs in the long run! And would residual affiliate
programs work best for you? Probably not, probably yes. It is
not really for me to tell. But with the benefits that residual
affiliate marketing can provide, it would really be unwise to
ignore such programs.

There's no doubt that the topic of Affiliate marketing can be fascinating.
If you still have unanswered questions about Affiliate marketing, you
may find what you're looking for in the next article.