The affiliate program market is also referred to as a cost-per-action (CPA) market.  These websites pay other site owners for a variety of actions such as buying, clicking, filling out a form or sending them a lead.

Before using any of these firms, you should ask for references so you can talk with other site owners to learn whether they are happy with the services these businesses offer. You might also want to ask your accountant and/or lawyer to review their terms and conditions and explain all the information listed in the “fine print.” When you use an affiliate marketing firm to bring revenue to your business, that firm becomes your business partner. You need to know as much as you can about them.

Many credit card companies and online colleges or universities will pay you an affiliate commission of $5 to $25 for each referral that completes an application. These commissions can possibly double if the company approves the application.

There are three primary ways to locate affiliate programs for your website:

1.  Consult affiliate sites like clickbank.com or cj.com.

2.  Work with a large affiliate network that provides the platform for dozens or even hundreds of  advertisers.

3.  Research individual merchants to see if they offer an affiliate program

Through these companies, you can market the whole merchant site or a specific product from the central site. The activity you generate is tied to your personal affiliate code, and the respective merchant sends you a commission check.

My friend Adrian Morrison makes a great living in the affiliate marketing world.  He has over 70 different campaigns running at the same time, and they’re all bringing in revenue.

Here’s one example:  Adrian was buying traffic  from Facebook for $.02 per click and selling those leads to an advertiser who wanted to build an e-mail list. The advertiser was giving away two tickets to the movies – at a wholesale cost of $2.00 — and paid Adrian $1.35 for every lead that signed up.  It took about five clicks for every sign up, which works out to the following:

•  Advertiser pays $2.00 for wholesale movie tickets

•  Advertiser pays out $1.35 to Adrian

•  Adrian pays Facebook $.02 per click, or $.10 for every five clicks

•  Adrian nets $1.25 per e-mail sign up

This cycle occurs 400 times per day — which means $15,000 per month profit on this single campaign.

There are thousands of ways to make money in the affiliate business. The trick knowing what traffic is out there to be purchased, at what cost, and what type of traffic the affiliates want. Then you put those pieces together — and keep the profit for yourself.