Learn Affiliate Marketing Basics

Affiliate marketing has been around almost since the net first became a commercial marketplace. Although Amazon's  name is synonymous with the birth of online affiliate marketing, the late Cory Rudl played a major role in making affiliate marketing what it is today. There are some advantages and disadvantages to pre selling a merchants product instead of your own.  Advantages of Affiliate Marketing  There is a whole range of products to choose from and merchant websites to partner with. Having that kind of flexibility can be great for testing different markets. If you have researched your merchant it isn't hard to find one with a website that pulls in the sales so when you send them a qualified visitor they can convert very well.An affiliate doesn't have to keep track of stock, worry about customer service, shipping or accounts.Disadvantages of Affiliate MarketingA lot of markets of highly competitive, some are saturated and some of the major markets - lending, credit, insurance are super saturated.Sometimes merchants close their affiliate program and don't pay money owed to affiliates.There is a wide variety of tracking tools available for an affiliate but when it comes to being able to track keywords that convert well for those practicing search marketing it is very rare that this option is available, unless a merchant has programmed his website to do this.In the beginning affiliate marketing can be very confusing but there are a lot of free resources such as, article directories, forums and blogs that can really help a newbie become a successful affiliate marketer.There are membership sites cropping up whose "sole purpose" is to train affiliates. Basically these sites give newbies tools to easily build pages, track their traffic, research keywords, research new markets and products. They will also offer 1 on 1 "coaching" from the owners and a whole community of other marketers who vary in experience from newbie to seasoned pro.There is only one way that is faster and more effective to learn affiliate marketing than membership sites and that is to hire an expert to mentor you. I totally recommend this method if you have thousands of dollars for start up capital. If not I suggest membership sites and personally recommend 1 of them. I am a member and in my opinion  they are a newbies best shot at becoming a successful affiliate marketer, and you don't need to spend anywhere close to thousands of dollars. I spend more going out for coffee in a month than I do paying for a membership.