Affiliate (Associate) Programs

If you have a computer and dream about having your own computer related "work at home" business, then the internet probably has some of the best income opportunities for you. They are commonly known as 'affiliate' programs.

Unless you setup your own core business from scratch, you will probably be most suited to becoming an affiliate for some of the bigger website operators.

An affiliate is much like a commission agent.
eg. Many people are affiliates of Amazon.com, the big online book retailer. These people sign up as Amazon affiliates and are provided with a special affiliate's linkcode. The affiliate puts an Amazon banner or graphic (with the special linkcode) on their website directing visitors to the Amazon website. When someone clicks the link, goes to Amazon and buys a book, the affiliate receives a commission.

The advantage of running an internet business that incorporates affiliate programs is that compared with most other businesses, there is very little financial risk. Initial outlay and ongoing overhead costs are usually minimal. You may have some relatively small setting up costs and thereafter it's a matter of how much time you want to devote to your online business.

To run most internet businesses, you will need your own website. Obviously, if you need to have a website, there will be monthly hosting costs etc. (this should cost you less than AU$20/month).

We should point out that there are a lot of other people doing the same thing. Some of them do it very successfully because they're prepared to work at it. However, as with many small businesses, if you don't put some effort in or you don't know what you're doing, you're probably not going to become rich overnight.

There are literally thousands of affiliate programs available on the internet. You just have to choose which one/s you want to form an association with by becoming their affiliate.

Not all affiliate programs have a good reputation when it comes to paying their affiliates.

When choosing who you want to be affiliated with, you'll need to consider the reputation of the affiliate program provider, their product or service, the affiliate program itself and the commission being offered. In our opinion, most of them don't pay enough.

There are mainly two types of affiliate programs:

• "pay-per-click" You get paid a few cents for each person who clicks the link on your website. Unless you have a very high traffic website, we believe this type of payment system is not worthwhile.
• "pay-per-sale" You get paid a commission for each sale made from a link that originated from your website. This is the type of program we prefer.

Our own policy is to pick a few of the best ones and stick with those. We limit ourselves to a maximum of 20 at any one time. Otherwise you'll end up with a huge directory of affiliate programs and your website will become a cluttered and confusing mess.

We then go through a culling process that is performance based. If we don't get paid what we're entitled to or if there is not enough interest in the products, we drop them.

We recommend you adopt a similar policy yourself. We believe it pays off over time.

For your convenience, we have provided a number of links to Affiliate Program directories. Going through them all will keep you busy (and probably confused) for days.

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