A friend of mine asked me what are the affiliate marketing basics? Although it's a simple question to answer I was only able to give him what I thought were the basics, but I'm sure there are many who will agree with most of it.
Well, before I go into those basics let's make sure my readers understand what affiliate marketing is.
Perhaps you are on the fence about getting into the business or you have failed to make any sales, and possibly you have made some sales but are not making a consistent income.
Sometimes we tend to over complicate things because of all the information overload online we deal with on a daily basis.
What is affiliate marketing? Earning commission promoting other people's products based on required actions, such as clicks, registrations, sales, etc.
Simple.
There really isn't much to it, but here is the problem many failing affiliate marketers make.
They promote the merchant's product and services like crazy but in the end they get the short end of the stick because in the long run the merchant will be making an endless stream of income from the customers you sent down their way.
So here are the affiliate marketing basics if you want to succeed in this business for the long term: 1.
Invest in an autoresponder.
2.
Collect, at a minimum, names and email addresses of as many people as possible.
3.
Make sure those people are a result of targeted traffic.
You want to promote to those interested in what you have to say.
Don't waste your time trying to put a square peg in a circle.
  You do that by providing free quality and targeted content using whatever medium you feel comfortable with, such as article marketing, blogging, eBooks, mini reports, videos, and so on.
This will help you attract more prospects to sign up to your list.
Offer affiliate products that fit the niche your subscribers were funneled through.
If they signed up to be on your list because you were offering quality information on dog training don't try selling them cat food.