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Affiliate Marketing is not a new phenomenon, far from it, many hundreds if not thousands of people from all walks of life have done extremely well at it. That, of course, only tells half the story, however. Those in the know will tell you that only 5% of people that get in to Internet Marketing, ever make any money at it. That suggests that 95% fail. This begs the question, "So Is Affiliate Marketing Really Tried And Tested?". This is the question that I will be pondering in this article.

So What Is Affiliate Marketing?

In order to answer the Title Question, one must first full understand exactly what Affiliate Marketing is. In essence, it's selling other people's products for a cut of the Sale. This can be anything from Computer Games to an eBook on How To Raise Twins ! It's fair to say that the array of things that can be sold in this manner is ever expanding. As an Affiliate Marketer, you effectively become the 'middle man', you help people online, to find products that they are looking for, so if its done properly, I guess you could call it 'Targeted Online Supply And Demand'

OK, So How Do I Become An Affiliate Marketer?

In the world of online marketing, their are two clear winners, in terms of providing a mechanism for becoming an Affiliate Marketer. These are Commission Junction and Clickbank. The former being concerned with 'real world' products such as sport equipment, computers and pretty much anything in between. The latter, specializes in online products such as ebooks (usually formatted as a PDF). These ebook can cover everything from "A Sure Bet Horse Racing System" to "How To Bake The Perfect Pie". The ClickBank products pay a much higher commission, as you can download their products, they have very little overhead. It's typical to get upwards of 80% of the total sale for the Affiliate Marketer.

On signing up with these companies, you get an Affiliate ID, and this gets associated with the product that is sold, and the commission is passed on to you, usually once or twice monthly. To simplify things a little, when you are an Affiliate Marketer, you are basically the middle man in, you provide the Supply to the Internet based Demand.

Back To The Point!

Ok, so to get back to the point of this Article, is Article Tried and Tested? Well, in my mind, Tried and Tested means being able to consistently sell products online, without losing your shirt! My experience shows that it is indeed Tried and Tested, as I have personally been successful in marketing products of differing types online, and made a tidy profit. The problem here though, is that most people fail, due in the main to a number of key pitfalls, that are commonly faced when attempting business of this nature. I will outline some of these below, to try and give you a feel for what's involved.

1) Focus & Expectations

A VERY common problem for the 95% of Internet Marketers that fail, is Focus. They do some basic reading up, but then get sidelined by the plethora of emails that hit their inbox each day. If you are serious about making money online, you need to FOCUS on the task at hand, and don't move on until you achieve what you set out to do. Also, far too many people seem to believe the hype surrounding *ALL* Internet and Affiliate Marketing programs, that money will drop out of the sky by pressing three buttons and waltzing off to bed. GET REAL, ANY business worth it's while, will need hard work and dedication, and will take time to develop into something substantial. There are no OVERNIGHT millionaire programs. Understand, and except that, and you won't go too far wrong.

2) The Product

This never ceases to amaze me when I see some Affiliate Marketers pick a random product, setup their link, and chuck some money at the generating traffic without paying an attention to the actual product itself. Ask yourself this question, would you buy this product? What do you know about it? If you are serious about planning a long term future for yourself from home, you're customers are not going to thank you for you promoting a product that sucks.

There are various ways to investigate the quality of any given product. The most effective of these is to actually buy it yourself. Now how's that for a crazy idea ! Of course, this only works for relatively low cost items, if you are going to sell a Plasma Television, Google it online and read some reviews, pickup a magazine and read up about it. It's not rocket science, and it's not time consuming !

3) Research

Come on, be real, how long does it take to find out how often a particular item is being searched for online. The answer, no time at all. There are many Free tools, and well as paid tools, that give you this information, so there is no excuse. The other part of this, of course, is knowing how much competition you are likely to have. Lets be honest, it you are trying to sell Viagra online, you're going to have to compete with millions of others doing the same thing (a quick check of your spam filter will tell you that!). You can still make money, but it's that much harder to achieve. Leave that to the big dogs, and find something with less competition. It really isn't hard to do.

4) Support

So you have taken my advice, and Focused on the Job at Hand, you have done your due diligence on the product and spent an hour or so researching the niche, but you are still going to need help, everyone has differing experience levels, and differing skills. Pretty much every 'Newbie' is going to need some help at some point, the problem is, most don't ever get it. They sign up willy nilly for this Affiliate Program, and that Affiliate Program, but hardly ever make a sale. You need Support. There are some programs out their that offer this, some promise the world, others baffle you with Videos and MP3 files about this and that, but they still don't ever answer your questions. Sometimes these questions are incredibly simple, but oftentimes, these simple issues can mark the fine line between success and failure.

Summary

A lot of what you need to succeed in Affiliate Marketing is down to you, work hard, do the research, allot the time, but you also need assistance, and if you don't get the right assistance, you will find it very hard to succeed. One program that has a fairly decent product set of reliable Affiliate programs, but an exceptional support team, is the Plug In Profits one. This system works, but like all systems, it takes a little time to completely understand, and the support you get is second to none.

You can find out more by going to http://www.megahomeprofits.com/main