This type of program has gained in popularity reasonably recently, especially with the advent of the Internet. Merchants and stores have needed to open online versions of their shops, and faced with a further need to bring people to visit these shops, have reverted more and more to the affiliate program to garner potential clients.

The affiliate is basically someone who will recommend the store to potential clients and direct them to the store.

How does the affiliate make money?

Basically, the affiliate is paid a sum of money or a commission for sending a client or visitor to the merchants site, whereupon the visitor buys the product.

A potential site owner contacts a company or store (merchant) and asks to be considered as an affiliate. After the store evaluates his request and decides whether he will be a good recommendation agent (which is basically what an affiliate is). If the merchant accepts the person as an affiliate, the merchant will usually provide the affiliate with marketing material such as links, banners and such to promote their site or product with.

Every successive click and referral coming from these links or banners will alert the store as to from whom the traffic is coming from. Therefore, when a sale is made because of the visitor that the affiliate sent to the merchants website, the affiliate gets the credit for the sale and receives a commission.

While it may seem simple when viewed this way, being an affiliate is not such an easy task... unless however, someone shows you how. There is definitely a lot of work involved behind it all. However, the lure of making money this way attracts more and more people everyday. In fact, many people are living off the revenue brought in through affiliate programs.

So how exactly can you make money as an affiliate?

There are 3 ways, actually payment options to affiliates:

* Pay per impression (CPM)
* Pay per click (PPC)
* Pay per sale/lead

Each of these bring in revenue, and are generally thought to be an either/or choice, as in, you can only choose one of the payment options.

Pay per impression (CPM)
CPM refers to cost per thousand actually. How did the change from pay per impression happen to cost per thousand? An impression is when something is viewed.

Simply because the affiliate under this scheme is paid for every 'impression' of a banner on his site. Payment is made by thousands (M being the Latin numeral of thousand), CPM translates thus to cost per thousand. This scheme is very simple and basic. An affiliate simply has to 'show' (akin to an impression) a banner on his site, and gets paid for every thousand banners viewed.

While it can appear as a simple way of earning money, CPM is not exactly 'the' get-rich-quick avenue of affiliates. Since you are paid by banners viewed, it is logical then to imagine that the more views, the more money earned.

How to get more views though? That's the key question. CPM can be a very profitable avenue for a site that has a lot of traffic.

Pay per click (PPC)
In this scheme, you get paid for every click to the banner you are displaying.

PPC definitely pays more than CPM, as it is a more hazardous gamble on whether or not someone will actually click the banner after seeing it.

• A site with high traffic and a site that also encourages clicking will fare much better in this type of scheme.
• Providing related content and pre-selling the affiliate's products on the site can lead to more clicks.
• Carefully targeting your audience is also a good way of getting the best out of your affiliate links.

Pay per sale/lead
In this situation, the affiliate earns a share or a commission on the sale of every product he directs a client to.

This is the one that most affiliates choose to promote simply because this form pays best. A potential client has to click the link to the store but also make a purchase or sign up for a service for the affiliate to earn anything.

Knowing how to write for the web and pre-selling your customer before sending them to the merchants website is key here. You definitely need to setup your page that gives the visitor exactly what they are looking for... and quickly.

Overall, it can be said that it is easy to earn money as an affiliate. That is, if you know the techniques and strategies to use. Everything is always easy when you know what you are doing. It's not knowing what you are doing is when things get complicated. However, there are lots of people making great money as affiliates promoting other people's products... it's a great business to be in!