4. Never send prospect directly to a vendor’s website without collecting their contact info first.

Affiliate marketing is ideal but not perfect. You must keep in mind that you are providing free advertisement for product owners. The merchants only pay you when you make sale. If you send prospect directly to their website then these prospect are lost to you forever. If you collect these names instead, then you can always send other marketing messages to them and earn an ongoing commission instead of making a one-time sale.

5. Publish an online newsletter or Ezine.

It is always easier to recommend a product to a friend than to sell to a stranger. This is philosophy behind publishing your own newsletter. A newsletter allows you to build a subscriber list and develop a relationship of trust with this list. Your subscribers will then trust you to recommend products that will benefit them.

This strategy requires a delicate balance of providing useful information along with a ‘sales pitch’. In other words, if you send out frequent advertisement to your list and little valuable information you are likely to lose credibility with your audience. But if you write informative editorials you will build a sense of reciprocity in your readers that will lead them to ‘support’ you by purchasing your affiliate products.

6. Ask merchants for a higher than normal commission.

If you are very successful with a particular promotion you should approach merchant and negotiate a higher percentage commission for your sales. If merchant is smart he or she will likely grant your request rather than lose you. Keep in mind again that you are a zero-risk investment to merchant, so don’t be shy in your requests. Just be reasonable.

7. Learn to write strong Pay Per Click (PPC) ads. One of most effective means of advertising online is through PPC search engines. As an affiliate, you can make a sizeable income by just managing PPC campaigns on services such as Google Adwords and Overture. Monitor your campaigns to see which ads are pulling their weight and trim those that are not.

You can use ClickBank™ Market Place, for example, and just choose a hot-selling product and start promoting. Once you are earning a decent return on your investment then you are in profit! Just this strategy alone can make all difference to your commission checks.

Affiliate marketing is an entrepreneur’s dream come true. Minimum investment, zero inventory, no employees, no product development—just BIG checks!