Affiliate programs are a mainstay on the Internet. In doing a Google search, you'll find over 20 million links for affiliate programs and 23 million for it's offspring known as Affiliate Marketing. It's a huge multi-million dollar market that continues to grow, and offers incredible opportunities for enterprising individuals. There are affiliate programs for practically anything you can imagine, and can be a great place for the beginner to start when looking to earn money online. This article looks at affiliate programs from a beginner's perspective to offer insight into just what an affiliate program really is, and compares the different types of affiliate programs.

An affiliate program is one in which you agree to 'affiliate' yourself with a particular program acting sort of as an agent of that program or business. It' one of the simplest businesses on the Internet, with your main concern being that of generating traffic to your affiliate website, and earning commissions on your sales. The commission that you earn can be anything from 5% to 75% according to the type of product you are selling. Digital products usually pay a higher commission percentage than actual physical products such as electronics, sports equipment, etc, but doesn't necessarily equate to higher profits since real products can sell at a much higher price. For digital based products, places such as Clickbank, Commission Junction and Paydotcom have hundreds of products that you can affiliate with. You can also find an assortment of real and digital affiliate products by simply doing a search with the words, 'Affiliate Programs'.

Another type of affiliate program is related more to business opportunities, and has been used for years by Network Marketing and MLM companies. This type of Affiliate Marketing differs in that instead of the emphasis being strictly on selling products, you are instead selling a particular program or business. Your primary focus becomes recruiting other affiliates into the program with the hope that they will also recruit other affiliates. A big appeal for these types of programs is the possibility of earning a significant residual income. While this concept sounds great in theory, the reality is that it usually doesn't work as well as advertised. Most people find it very difficult to sign up people into a program, and the turnover rate can be extremely high, particularly where there is a monthly cost involved. Successful Network Marketers will tell you that it's simply a numbers game, and that it only takes a few highly motivated people to make you money. Whether or not you locate these people before your patience and money runs out is the big challenge.

Regardless of what type of online business you're involved with, a major issue is getting traffic to your website. You can have what you consider to be the best program or product on the Internet but without sufficient traffic, you are 'dead in the water'. There are two basic types of web traffic; free and paid. While free traffic sources such as Click Exchanges, Social Networking websites such as Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, etc., Safelists, Forums, and Article Marketing don't cost you much in the way of money, they do require a significant 'investment' in time in order to make them work. Some of the free traffic sources like Click Exchanges and Safelists are primarily used by fellow marketers so unless you have a unique product that will benefit them in some way, you will probably be spinning your wheels with this type of advertising. Many savvy marketers are now making use of video presentations through Youtube to market their products, and others such as myself like to use articles to spread the word. The point is, Internet Marketing is constantly evolving, and there will always be new ways to market your products.

While building an Internet business without having to spend a bunch of money on advertising sounds like the easy choice, most affiliate marketers rely upon paid advertising such as PPC's like Google and Yahoo, Solo Ads in Ezines, and Banner ads to sell their products. Payperclicks are basically an online auction in which you place bids for keywords and pay your bid amount whenever someone clicks on your keyword. Although I have used PPC's with excellent results in the past, increased competition has made the cost of good keywords prohibitive in many cases. Advertising in ezines and newsletters can be a good option for those with limited funds and little Internet Marketing experience. There are thousands of these publications available on the Internet, and you can test an ad for as little as $5. Lastly, many affiliate programs provide banners that are basically images that allows someone to click on it, and takes them to the affiliate website. If you can find good places to display your banners, this can be a very profitable method of advertising.

Affiliate marketing can be an excellent choice for those looking to earn money online. There are many people making good money marketing affiliate programs and some who earn six figure incomes. It can be done, but it usually doesn't happen overnight. Take some time to see what type of affiliate programs are out there, and see what you would feel most comfortable marketing.