As years went by, my affiliate sales grew slowly to around $500 a month. It was then I realized that maybe I could turn this part time income into a full time salary. I had not really devoted a lot of time to researching affiliate programs. I would simply find one that would pay off, and use it. The day I realized I could earn more than $500 per month, I set down some goals to get me started. I have fine tuned these goals over past 24 months, thankfully I had to because to be honest, I was obliterating my financial expectations.

So, my goals in beginning were pretty simple:

1. Find an affiliate program that pays $50 per month to cover my website hosting fees. 2. Make sure it is related to content of my website.

Not much there huh?

A year ago, these were my goals:

1. Earn $500 per month through Major Affiliate Networks 2. Look into smaller affiliate networks, including independant merchant. 3. Create websites devoted to product or service I am marketing. 4. Change hosting providers to allow for up to 100 domain names / websites. 5. Continue to learn more about new affiliate oppurtunities.

As you can see, my goals grew substantially. I am proud to say I met all those goals within a few months, instead of year I had planned.

My goals from 2004:

Made popular on internet by Amazon.com, marketers can now earn a referral fee for directing visitors to countless merchants’ website. According to Forrester Research, affiliate program earnings will represent $53 BILLION of all e-commerce sales by 2005. How could you earn a sizeable piece of this pie? Here are some powerful tips that would get you rolling in those big commission checks and laughing all way to bank.

1. Know what programs and products to promote.

Of course you will want to promote those programs that will bring you greatest profits in shortest time. There are several factors that play into selecting such a program. Choose programs that have a generous commission structure, products that fit in with your target audience and a solid track record of paying their affiliates on time. If you cannot recoup your investment, then prune such programs and keep looking for better ones. There are tens of thousands of affiliate programs online so you can afford to be picky. This is a case where you will want to choose just cream of crop and so reduce risk of losing your advertising dollars.

2. Write free reports or short ebooks to distribute from your website.

Most likely you will be competing with other affiliate marketers who are promoting same program. If you write a short report on a related topic to product that you are promoting, then you can distinguish yourself from all other affiliates. In this report you can provide valuable information for free with a “recommendation” of product. This is often referred to as a ‘soft sell’.

The report or ebook allows you to develop credibility with your audience and your readers are more likely to follow your recommendation. There is less resistance to this type of selling because prospect doesn’t feel ‘sold’, just informed. The next step is to make this ebook ‘viral’ by allowing those who bought product through your link to ‘brand’ ebook for their own promotional use.

3. Collect email addresses of those who download your free ebook.