Do you operate a website and are looking to make an additional income? Affiliate
programs can offer a nice additional income opportunity for webmasters! Affiliate programs
have been in existence for years and finally more and more website owners are starting to realize the income potential that these programs present.

Below you will find different affiliate programs we have personally joined and have ran on our websites. Each program offers a different compensation plan and some require certain types
of websites, so make sure you read the affiliate agreements.

Commission Junction
Max Bounty

Affiliate Marketing 101

Affiliate marketing programs are a simple way to earn extra income from your website
as well as a great introduction to the e-commerce business. The more people that visit
your website, the better your chance of creating a good revenue.

How do affiliate marketing programs work? A company offers to pay you a set amount
for either a click-through, an affiliate referral, or a percentage of a product purchased from
your website by way of a text link, banner, or button.

Even if visitors do not make a purchase immediately, almost all programs offer cookie
duration, normally consisting of 30 - 90 days. What this, basically, means is that, as
long as the visitor keeps the cookie cached, you will still receive a profit from their
purchase within the specified duration..

Now, the biggest amount of time in maintaining your website will be searching and implementing affiliations with various companies. Even though, there is a lot of money
in affiliate marketing, you have to take the time to search for the best affiliate programs
that fit you and your business needs. 

One thing that you may cause some reservation, is the idea of other companies’ banners taking over your website. If you place too many banners or links onto any one web page,
it can exhaust or even confuse your visitors.  Also, more than one animated link on
a web page can be very distracting as well.

Affiliate tracking can also be a problem. Once you have applied to become an affiliate for
a certain company, they will usually supply you with a personalized link or code. It is very important that you implement this code into your page correctly, or you may be sending
visitors to the company without ever receiving your share of the profit.

A majority of snippets in the code will contain a unique user ID, which the company uses
to identify your website traffic for payout.