What is Affiliate Marketing and Why It's Good Way for Moms to Make Money

Affiliate Marketing Lets You Work From Home

So what is affiliate marketing and why is it a good way for moms who want to work from home to make money?  In simple terms, affiliate marketing is online commission sales made through an affiliate program.  If you’re thinking party sales or meetings, think again.  You could be a very successful affiliate marketer and never leave your house.  You can work in your underwear and make money.  But yes, you will still have to work.   In essense, in affiliate marketing, you promote a merchant’s product online and when someone links through your site or ad and buys from that merchant, you get a commission of the sale.  Like in the earlier post where we talked about some of the benefits of affiliate marketing (no products, low overhead, no credit cards or returns), affiliate marketing really is quite simple in its essence.  Doing it successfully does take work.

Commissions can be paid in a variety of ways, the most common being:

Pay per Sale – a Sale must occur and you will get a commission (up to 75% sometimes) off of the sale price

Pay per Click – you get paid if you host a link to a merchant and someone clicks on it – no further action is necessary – you generally don’t get paid very much for this.

Pay per Lead – you get paid if someone registers or downloads a product – this will usually be a set fee per lead provided.

So, in four easy steps, this is how affiliate marketing works and how you can make money online:

1. You join an affiliate program and get a unique affiliate id (this is how you will be paid) that is coded into a url or link
2. You put the affiliate link on your blog, website, or in your email newsletters, or sometimes in online classified ads
3. Someone, other than you, clicks on this link, goes to the merchant site and makes a purchase or signs up for something
4. The merchant then pays you a commission for the successful action.

Sounds easy and it is.  The merchant has to create a compelling sales page, has to develop the product, test it, handle returns, and exchanges, process credit cards, etc.  You just sit back and collect the checks.  Literally.

Sounds so easy anyone could do it, which is why I, as an Internet entrepreneur who had managed to generate a lot of buzz for my company, but not many sales, decided to try it.

Of course, though those general pricnciples work, it’s not as simple as all that.  We’ll go more into the details about how you actually make money from affiliate marketing in future posts.