Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to launch your own online business, you don't need to deal with customers, keep a stock of product, worry about refunds or delivery of products, you don't even need your own website.

Would you like to know how to double, or even triple your affiliate commissions? Of course you would, who wouldn't? I will show you three powerful techniques that will boost your commissions.

Collect email addresses

Offering a free report or ebook gives you the golden opportunity of adding peoples email addresses to your contact list. It's a fact that repeated contact with you list will produce more sales, often people won't buy on the first contact, it can take 6 or 7 follow-up emails.

Not only will your sales increase if you have a contact list, you can make multiple sales for months and years to come by promoting similar products to your list.

If you build a relationship with your contacts, they will start to trust you, don't just send them email after email trying to push your latest products, send them useful information to build your credibility.

I'm sure you are on many opt-in lists, which ones do you actually read and which do you delete straight away? I can bet you delete the ones from the guy who just sends out ads and not any real information, don't fall into that trap, treat your opt-in list well and they will treat you well in return.

Ask for higher commissions

If you have had a few successful promotions with one vendor, ask them if you can have a higher commission rate.

Don't be afraid to do this, if a vendor knows you are a good affiliate that can sell his products, then he won't want to lose you, remember they need you, you don't need them, just ask for a reasonable commission rise.

Don't go over the top though, don't go asking for a 40% increase or anything like that as that just won't happen, just a few percent would make all the difference.

Promote the best products

You need to promote products that are going to give you the highest return in the shortest possible time.

There are a few different factors you will need consider when choosing the right affiliate program to promote. Pick products that closely fit in with your target audience, choose a program that pays the highest commissions and has a good record of paying their affiliates on time.

You can afford to be choosy when picking a program as there are literally thousands of merchants to choose from.

Remember that you are competing with other affiliates promoting the same program, so it's a good idea to write a short ebook or a free report that's related to the product you are promoting and that you can distribute from your site.

In your ebooks or reports, provide your potential customers with some valuable information for free. For example you could compare and review different products pointing out the benefits of each product.

Try out the above tactics and you will soon see bigger commissions quickly.