How Does Affiliate Marketing Work - A Beginner's Guide by Grady Pruitt

Have you been looking online for a way to make money? Chances are, you've heard of affiliate marketing. But if you are new to ways of making money online, you are probably wondering just what affiliate marketing is. And you really want to know how does affiliate marketing work? Most important of all, you are wondering if you can make money using it.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are working at a store, such as an electronics store. For each product that you sell, you get a percentage of the purchase price. Now, imagine, that instead of a store, you're working at a mall, and you can get a percentage on anything you sell at that mall, regardless of whether it is clothing, electronics, or a collectible. Not only that, but if you interest a customer in a particular item, if that customer bought that item within a certain time frame, you would get that commission.

In a nutshell, that is essentially what affiliate marketing is. Individuals connect with other individuals or companies to sell products, whether they be a physical product or an informational product. Through affiliate marketing, the people with the products can get it to the people who want the products. By sharing the revenue with the people who promote the products, both sides win.

Just how is this revenue shared? It varies from product to product. Physical products generally have a lower "commission" than an informational product. A large part of the reason for this is that a physical product has a "unit" cost. In other words, it cost a certain amount of money to produce the physical product. The manufacturer will sell that product to someone who distributes the product. The affiliate marketer would get a percentage of the profit from the distributor. An informational product, on the other can, can have essentially $0 cost to produce. There are cost, but compared to a physical product, these costs are so minimal that it only takes a handful of sales to recover these costs. That is why the producers of informational products can give a much higher percentage of the profits to the people who promote their products.

So, if you are trying to get people to buy something, you are probably wondering if you have to convince someone to buy something. The great thing is, as an affiliate marketer, all you have to do is find the people who want the product. You don't have to try to sell them. As a marketer, you just let the sales page of the company or individual provides you try to do the selling. While you don't have to do a lot of hard selling, you do have to differentiate what you are promoting from what someone else may offer. But you are not limited, as a marketer, to one product. You can choose from a range of products to promote to maximize your potential.

Now that you know what affiliate marketing is and have an idea of how affiliate marketing works, the question remains can you make money? In a word, absolutely! There are several ways that you can promote products for little to no money. By spending a little, there are even ways to make even more money. Even with some monthly costs, it is fairly easy to have a profitable month selling informational products by referring only a handful of people who wind up purchasing what you are promoting.

To get good at affiliate marketing does require some effort, and it is not quite as simple as what I have here. What I have given here is an overview of what affiliate marketing is and tried to give you a little insight into how affiliate marketing works. Making money with affiliate marketing does take time and effort. But for someone willing to do what it takes, the rewards can be worth.

Would you like to learn more about affiliate marketing and other ways to make money online? Check out my Let's Make Money From Home blog.
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