2.3 Promoting Affiliate Programs

Promoting affiliate programs is a means to make money without making products. An affiliate program is essentially some system which allows vendors who did not create a product to become affiliated with it by selling it for a commission. Depending on how these vendors are promoting affiliate programs and which programs they promote, they could earn a 75% commission on each sale.

If you're interested in promoting affiliate programs on your blog, you will want to consider the major third party players. This list includes Link Share, ClickBank, and Commission Junction.

ClickBank and Commission Junction provide affiliate programs for most major information product sellers and membership sites. If you want to earn higher commissions, you will want to use CB and CJ, as their programs usually offer commissions between 25% and 75%.

If you promoting affiliate programs through LinkShare, you will have access to a virtually limitless amount of programs to promote. Just to name a few -- Netflix, Wal Mart, Target, 1 - 800 - Flowers, Pet Smart, and Apple all have affiliate programs administered t hrough LinkShare. Commissions on these physical products tend to be lower - usually in the range of 5 to 15%.

If you begin promoting affiliate programs through ClickBank, it is important that you check what your check threshold is set to. In many cases, it will be set to an amount like $100; if you would prefer them to send you a check every two weeks, regardless of how little you earn, you will need to change this manually.

If you're promoting affiliate programs through LinkShare, payment methods will vary, but most programs only pay on a monthly basis, as they are large and administered by corporations.

If you don't want to promote CJ, CB, or LS products, you can always promote large Internet-based corportions, such as Google and Ebay. Although many don't know it, Google has an affiliate program for Adwords and Adsense; and Ebay has an affiliate program for auction accounts. Both have rewarding commission systems.