The best way to choose an affiliate program is to first choose a topic of interest. It is much easier to promote a program that one finds interesting. Clickbank has a marketplace where affiliate programs on nearly any topic can be found to promote. The amount of commissions an affiliate program pays is also a very important consideration. A good affiliate program should in almost all cases pay at least a 20 dollar commission. Also when starting an affiliate marketing business it is best to focus on a single affiliate program rather than try and promote several at the same time.

The fastest way to drive traffic to an affiliate site is to use google adwords. Adwords can be a very effective way to generate quality targeted traffic and sales. However anyone new to affiliate marketing should learn as much as possible before using google adwords due to the potentially high amount of competition and cost of traffic.

Blogs are another excellent affiliate marketing tool to generate targeted traffic. Blogs that are frequently updated with relevant and useful information centered around a single topic often receive traffic from the search engines. It's also important for a blog to provide a RSS feed to be successful at drawing in traffic. Links can be put in the text of the blog to send traffic to an affiliate site.

Another way to send targeted traffic to an affiliate site is to write articles and publish them online. This affiliate marketing method works because the article along with the affiliate link is generally reprinted on many websites of similar topics and traffic will come from these sites. Also articles often can be found ranking high in search engine results.

Advertising in ezines is another option for sending traffic to an affiliate website. To be effective advertising platform an ezine should be about a topic very closely related to the affiliate site.

Traffic exchanges can also be used as an effective affiliate marketing tool. The quality of traffic from exchanges is much less than other sources however the potential volume of traffic received from exchanges makes using them appealing.

All the traffic methods outlined have certain advantages and also drawbacks. It's important to use multiple ways to promote a site to be successful at affiliate marketing.