Become an Affiliate

"Affiliates" are people (or businesses) that are compensated for helping drive a desired behavior in consumers. The desired behavior is typically a sale, but it can also be for leads (in the form of traffic, ad clicks, phone calls, or completed information requests.

Becoming an affiliate is typically is usually pretty easy. Often time the minimum requirement is that you own a website that has some measurable traffic and completing an application. Some affiliate programs do not even require a website and provide you with tools for marketing their products/services offline in the form of sign-up codes. Since there are literally THOUSANDS of affiliate opportunities, I'm going to discuss what I believe are the keys to choosing the affiliate program that has the best chance of being successful for you.

Here are the key questions you need to ask yourself (and answer honestly) to determine the best way to choose an affiliate program that is right for you.

1. Do you know how to build a website (or are you willing to learn)?
2. Are you a decent writer?
3. What are you interested in, passionate about, or knowledgeable of?
4. Do your friends/colleagues come to you for advice about certain types of decisions?

If you answered yes to most of these questions, then you have the potential to be a successful affiliate. Probably the most important component of being a successful affiliate is the creation of a website. For the uninitiated, this may seem very intimidating, but designing and developing a website has gotten MUCH easier with tools such as MS Frontpage. Designing and building a site is now kind of like using Microsoft Word. You type, format, insert pictures, etc in order to create a webpage graphically. Very little HTML knowledge is actually needed in order to create web pages anymore. If you do NOT have a website, you will be relying largely on promoting the affiliate product or service person to person. Is having a website important? In terms of viewing affiliate pgrams as PASSIVE income opportunities it might.

Consider the following affiliate structure:
Company "A" pays you 2% of every sale on every sales from customers that originates from you forever. Company "B" pays you $25 for every new customer the originates from you.

With Company A, you will make 2% on the first sale...but you will also make 2% on all future purchases that your customers make with that business. For this reason, sending them business both online AND offline can be considered ways to generate Passive Income. Once the upront work is done, you continue to reap the benefit into the future.

With Company B, you are compensated one time for each new customer you find. If you have a website that has monthly traffic that results new customer signups each month, then you have created a Passive Income stream. If you rely on person-to-person promotion to find new customers for them, you are essentially a sales person who works on a commission-only basis. This is NOT passive income. This is just to demonstrate why a website may take turn an affiliate opportunity into a passive income stream vs just another source of active income.

So, given that there are thousands of affliate opportunities, your best chance for generating a successful Passive Income is to:
- Choose an product/service/industry that you are knowledgable about.
- Choose an affiliate program that pays in a residual fashion.
- Use both ONLINE and OFFLINE methods to promote the good/service you have selected.

Why is it important to be knowledgable? Simply put, most of the OTHER people who have chosen this good/service to promote ARE knowledgable. They are your competition and you want to be able to compete. Do you feel that you are not knowledgable in anything? Well, the good news is that you can take some time and research some affiliate opportunities and learn about them. If taking this approach, it may be smart to choose some of the more lucrative affiliate programs and learn about those. They may be more competitive, but if you are going to put in the time the payoff could be much bigger.

Remember, Passive Income doesn't mean "Easy and without effort income". It just means that you do the work up front and get an ongoing benefit.

Where do you go to find affiliate programs? They are all over the place, you probably just never noticed. Go to your favorite sites and see if they have an affiliate program. Here are a few example affilite programs to get you started:

Amazon.com Associates
NetFlix.com
Commission Junction
LinkSynergy.com
Google Affiliate Network
ClickBank
FullTiltPoker.com

Amazon.com
Through this affiliate program you can earn 4-8% of all sales revenue generated by your visitors at Amazon.com. They provide many tools/methods for driving traffic from your site with the goal of generating sales that you can share in.

NetFlix.com
This affiliate program provides a "bounty" structure where you will receive a flat fee (currently $16) for each new customer that you generate for them. NetFlix is a DVD/Movie delivery service that charges a monthly subscription fee to its customers.

Commission Junction, LinkSynergy, Google Affiliate Network
These companies all do essentially do the same thing. They act as a 3rd party affiliate program provider for companies that do not want to build their own affiliate platform. For example, BlockBuster.com (a competitor of NetFlix.com) has chosen to use Commission Junction as it's affiliate program. By signing up to any one (or all) of these programs you will be able to apply to any of the thousands of affiliate programs that may interest you.

ClickBank
This affiliate program allows it's members to promote DIGITAL products on their websites. The most common examples of these products include software and eBooks, which can be instantly downloaded after purchase.

FullTiltPoker.com
This is an example of an affiliate program that allows you to generate an ongoing stream of revenue that is driven by how many new customers (poker players) you drive to their site. They provide you with the option of receiving a flat commission for new player signups, or to receive an ongoing percentage of the income generated for the site by your new players. For passive income, I recommend choosing the percentage of player revenue option.

These are just a few of the many, many, many affiliate programs that you can locate and enroll in. Find your area of expertise and start building your pipeline of affiliate-based Passive Income.