Affiliate marketing is the only online business that can give you hands free experience once you have it set up. The fabled 'autopilot' income is not a myth, but that will only come with knowledge and experience. If that's something that interests you, then continue reading to discover a few proven affiliate marketing tips that can get you on your way.

If you can be passionate about a product you're promoting, then that's great - but it is not necessarily essential to have that feeling. Perhaps the thing that will determine your feeling is the particular market for a product. You will need to sit down and give some thought as to whether or not you want to work with something you don't really care for.

You'll need to stay motivated and have some energy to promote anything, and the concern is that you won't have those feelings for a market you don't like, or even hate. Another consideration is that your readers may be able to detect your lack of enthusiasm for the product. You don't want to torpedo your own efforts in a situation like this. Ok, so just keep that in mind when you're trying to find a good product to promote as an affiliate. It's really true that those who read what you write will be able to gauge how passionate you are, or are not.

It's important to choose a domain name that will actually help your marketing efforts. First of all, if you're trying to target one single product, then you need to have a dedicated domain name for it, one that contains the main keyword. Don't settle for free web hosts that give you a sub-domain name. Your domain name has to be unique and have the primary keyword in it so that the search engines give it high priority, since they rank domains with the keyword in them, higher.

The reason market research is so important to success is because you need to get to know your target audience, and you have to know that before you can give them what they want the most. If you drive targeted traffic to your site, and you know what your audience wants, then they'll find it when they arrive.

Increased knowledge and awareness of the problems, issues, and concerns of your target audience will naturally allow you to serve their needs better. In another vein, perhaps more affiliate marketers fail online because they simply market products that will not perform well for various reasons. If it's at all possible, make a good attempt to interact with your market via a blog which, as you know, will allow for spontaneous communications on both sides. Another approach is to simply ask your market on your blog through the use of polls, and then try to glean some valuable information from that.

All in all, it takes a great deal of effort at first to set up your affiliate marketing business, but once you do, there's no looking back.