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I am posting this because so many people have a hard time understanding what I do for a living! But when they find out I work online, they are usually curious about it. So I figured this would have general interest to visitors here who are just trying to get some gneral information!

A company becomes a sponsor and starts an affiliate program:

Companies want to advertise a product on the internet so they set up an affilaite program. Website owners can register with the program, and so they become affiliates! They will get a unique code to put on their site. This code will have a link to the program with a unique code that identifies which affiliate sent the visitor.

This code may include text links or banner ads. There will usually be a variety of different advertising formats, or the webmaster can creat their own as long as they link with a valid code so they get credit.

How do Affiliates Get Paid?

Affilaites get paid for an action. This action could be pay per click (PPC), pay per sale (PPS), or pay per lead (PPL). Either way, these are called pay per action (PPA) programs. Sometimes a program will allow the affilaite a choice, or even combine actions, but they usually have one.

Adsense is an example of a large PPC program, though there is also a pay per impression (hah! another one) choice too. Pay per lead programs means that the website visitor must follow the code and fill out some type of interest form, thereby creating a lead for the sponsor. There are many companies, and even affilaite networks of companies, that have PPS programs. A large example of a pay per sale program would be Amazon, the online book (and everything else these days) giant.

Does Affiliate Marketing Really Work?

Sure, lots of people make money as affilaite marketers. However, in order to make any money, a website needs a steady stream of visitors. The job of promoting the website in order to attract visitors, and hopefully, repeat visitors takes skill and time. And webmasters need to learn to post ads that the visitors who would be interested in their particular type or website would be likely to visit. Pre-selling or writing good copy to promote these products is also another valuable skill that webmasters need. So yes, affiliate marketing can work, but like anything else, it is a job.

So while thousands of people have learned to make a full or part time income online, many fail. The advantages of starting an internet marketing business over some other enterprises though, are the fairly low startup costs. A domain (website) name and website hosting are a lot cheaper than renting a store. Plus, the work can usually be done on a flexible schedule, and the owner does not have to keep set hours.

 But don't be mislead into thinking this is a simple job that does not take effort. Most webmasters that actually make money work a lot ot improve their copy, provide interesting content, and attract visitors!