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Affiliate Marketing has developed into an Internet marketing specialty. Not everyone can do it effectively. It's not real hard, but it is tedious work and requires some attention to detail. The best affiliate marketing programs all have certain characteristics that make them successful. Here are a few of the most important characteristics of an affiliate marketing program:

Pays monthly - This is a big one. If you don't pay often enough you'll lose affiliates and you can't grow without affiliates.

Pays generously - This is perhaps the most important determinant of whether an affiliate marketing program will succeed. Pay your affiliates well and they will stick with you. Don't, and they will leave.

Two-tiered structure - Two-tiered affiliate programs are under rated, but the best affiliate marketing programs pay people for recruiting other affiliates. The second tier doesn't have to be much. It can be about 10% or even 5% of the affiliate commission (which I highly recommend be about 50% for most products), but at 5% of the affiliate commission your affiliates will recruit others to join their sales team and you will succeed all the more.

Provides support materials - Banners, sales pages, other resources. Whatever will help your affiliates be better affiliates, that's what you need to do. Support them and they'll support you.

Communicates with affiliates on a regular basis - Really. Don't leave your sales team hanging. Either write a blog just for your affiliates, start an e-zine just for them, or both. But you have to communicate with them on a regular basis so that they don't feel abandoned.

Offers specials - Every now and then you need to run a special, or a contest. This is motivational. It gets people excited and motivated, excited affiliates work harder to sell your products.

If you want your affiliates to be successful, you've got to give them the tools to do so. Otherwise, they will abandon you like a sinking ship and you'll be left selling your own cold, stale products.