1. Your customer base: Your site and your newsletter are good starting points, after all, these people already like your products. Put a link on your homepage that says "Webmasters: Make Money!" and talk up your affiliate program in newsletter on a regular basis, stressing that your affiliates can sign up for free and start making money right away.

2. Other businesses: Target business that, say, focus on pets, but that are not your direct competition. Send an email to each business inviting them to join and put "Affiliate invitation" in subject line of your email. Also mention each business and/or business owner by name in body of your message to lessen chances that it will be deleted as spam.

3. Your friends and acquaintances. Come up with a short blurb that talks about your affiliate program and ask everyone in your address book to send it to everyone in their address book.

4. Professionals: Veterinarians, breeders, etc. Anyone who deals with pets is a potential affiliate.

Which program should you use?

There are so many affiliate programs that choosing one can be a daunting task.

I use AffiliateTracking.net ( http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854 ) for all of my sites, mainly because their customer service and support is phenomenal - they had my first affiliate program up and running in just days - and they're also very reasonably priced. In addition, multiple sites can be promoted in same basic package; there's no need to spend extra for every site.

I heartily recommend AffiliateTracking.net, ( http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854 ) but you can find other similar companies by doing a simple search for "affiliate tracking" in your favorite search engine.

No matter which company you go with, you could have others promoting your site and making sales for you in just a couple of days!

6. It's preferable if vendor site does not obviously advertise for recruitment of more affiliates. An affiliate link is fine as long as it is low key.

7. The best affiliate programs will attempt to secure email address of your referrals. Some prospects need to see a sales message at least seven times before they will buy. Make sure you still get credit for sales made during follow up.

8. The vendor should provide testimonials. Testimonials create confidence and trust leading your prospects to make a purchase.

9. You will recognize a profitable affiliate program because at least one in fifty clicks creates a sell. Constantly monitor your expense versus profit for each set of keywords.

10. Track your keywords and delete any that do not get clicked on after two hundred impressions. The higher your click through rate, higher position you receive in relation to your competitors.

Patrick Carlow Reciprocal Link Exchange Directory Free Internet marketing resources, traffic generators and reciprocal link exchange directory.