An affiliate program is designed to benefit two parties - the seller and the promoter. The seller gains by having the promoter advertise, pre-sell or simply market a product or service in exchange for a percentage of the sale. This is similar to the real-world model of commission sales; whereby a salesman is paid a percentage of each sale he makes.

Affiliate marketing on the internet has and will continue to make people very wealthy. Due to the vast amount of products to promote to a virtually unlimited audience, companies are always looking at ways to further expand their market share without going to great effort and expense. The best way for them to achieve that goal is to allow regular people like you and me promote their company, service or a particular product that they sell.

If you visit the Commission Junction website, you will find hundreds upon hundreds of online and real world retailers who want website owners to advertise for them, in return for a cut of every sale made. A webmaster simply needs to display a banner or text link, imbedded with affiliate code, and if a visitor clicks that link and purchases a product, the webmaster will receive his commission.
Commission Junction is a mega hub of affiliate programs. They provide the interface and tracking that allow webmasters to promote several affiliate programs at once, without the hassle of maintaining sales records themselves. Commission Junctions track all clicks and sales, and simply send the webmaster a check every month for the amount of commission he has earned.

Although simply displaying a few banners might seem rather easy, this method will very rarely make you any sales. To become a great affiliate, the idea is to 'pre-sell' to the customer. Pre-selling generates the customer's interest and installs a 'ready to purchase' frame of mind through the method of convincing and tapping into their emotional needs.

Pre-selling can take the form of offering reviews of certain products, and subtly adding some affiliate links to the review. Pre-selling can also consist of posting an authoritative article on a particular subject relating to a product. The reader will then associate your expertise with this product, and will be in the frame of mind to make a purchase after reading your article which speaks extremely highly of this particular product. And because you are an expert in this field, you must be right when you say they really need this product, right?

Tip to increase your affiliate earnings
If you are an affiliate, there are an unlimited amount of things you can do to substantially increase your income. One of my favorites is good old fashioned article marketing. Writing an informative article can potentially bring in sales for you well into the future. Articles never die on the internet; your article will still be around in five or ten years time, hopefully earning you money!

You can write an article on the niche in which your affiliate program relates to. Once you submit this article to free article directory sites with your affiliate website link strategically placed in the resource box, other people will use this article on their websites. Your link will always remain intact, therefore you should start seeing visitors trickle (or preferably flood) in from various websites. A few sales here and there will make your hour or so of article writing well worth the effort.

Affiliate programs are a potential goldmine to the person who masters the art of promoting them. Make sure you start taking action today, and before too long you could be the next six figure affiliate marketer.