Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing Basics

If you’re just starting out in affiliate marketing, it will probably be helpful to understand exactly how the whole process works: who does what and when money is made (these are also good explanations for the more experienced affiliate marketers):

1. How Does Affiliate Marketing Work? Affiliorama has one of the best answers to this complex and common questions, explaining just how the affiliate marketing ecosystem runs.
2. How Affiliate Marketing Works – A Step By Step Visual. Rae Hoffman has a great visual explanation for how the affiliate marketing process works, from the initial signup to the paycheck delivery.
3. A (Short) History of Affiliate Marketing. This feature from Skimlinks highlights the history of affiliate marketing, starting back before the days of the internet.
4. Affiliate Marketing 101: Learning the Lingo. This article on Affiliorama gives a good rundown of the jargon you’ll come across in the affiliate industry.

Getting Started

Every successful affiliate marketer started at some point with little more than an idea and a domain name. Getting off the ground with that initial property and making that first conversion is a big deal, and a big challenge. Here’s some reading to help in that regard:

5. How to Build Your First Online Asset in 48 Hours. Sean Ogle shares a detailed, 11-step guide for getting off the ground and putting up that first affiliate website.
6. What to Do When “All of the Good Ideas are Already Taken”. Pat Flynn has some great insights into a common frustration and challenge of affiliate marketers. (Be sure to read the comments here as well; there are some great insights there as well.)
7. Finding a (Good) Niche In Affiliate Marketing. Rae Hoffman shares an answer to a common question: how do you go about finding a good niche for an affiliate marketing site?

Affiliate Marketing Scams

To some, affiliate marketing has a clearly negative connotation as a sleazy way to make money online.

8. The big, ugly affiliate marketing scam. The title of this one says it all. Be sure to also check out Sorry, affiliate marketing actually isn’t a (big, ugly) scam for a counterpoint to some of the issues raised here.
9. Affiliate Marketing with Integrity (A Conversation with Pat Flynn). This one is actually a video (about eight minutes long) that provides some interesting insights into how Pat Flynn became a successful affiliate marketer.
10. Avoiding Affiliate Marketing Scams. Rae also has some great insights on how to avoid getting scammed when starting off in affiliate marketing, as well as her suggested reading list.