This site is about promoting affiliate programs. So, if we are going to talk about promoting affiliate programs, we should know what an affiliate program is.

Technically, an affiliate marketing program is one in which the owner agrees to pay you some percentage of the selling price if your efforts result in a sale of his product.

An affiliate program can be one that you own or it can be one that someone else owns.
Either of these can be promoted as an affiliate program.

In the first case you decide to allow others to help you promote your program. In other words, you associate with others in promoting your program - which now becomes and affiliate program.

You allow these new associates or affiliates to keep some percentage of the selling price and you keep the rest. You have become an affiliate marketer - one that allows others to market a product that you developed.

There are several advantages of this:

• You get more customers because others are marketing your product for you.
• Because you are now involved in affiliate marketing, you can build your list faster because each customer that an affiliate brings in becomes your customer.
• Since they are now your customers, you can market your other products to them. If the product they have purchased proves useful, there is a good probability that they will purchase another product form you.

Even if the customer does not purchase right away, he is likely to remain on your list and buy at some point in the future.

So by affiliate marketing you have make a percentage of the sale and gained a new prospect for your customer list. And, all you had to do was allow someone else to be an affiliate of your program.

In the second case, you enter the market without a product of your own. Yet, you want to be involved in the Internet marketing game. So, you look around and you find a program that you really like and feel that you can promote successfully. The owner will let you keep a percentage of the selling price if you make a sale.

If you decide to do this, you have become an affiliate marketer - you associate with the owner of the program and market the product for him.

There are many advantages to this option.

• First, you do not have to own a product in order to be involved in Internet marketing.
• You generally do not have to own a website since the owner will provide you with a method to market his product. This is usually a link that leads to his sales page. Thus, it is called an affiliate link or URL.
• The owner will also provide you with marketing materials.

Now, there is a catch with all of this. Neither of you will be successful without effort.

The owner will not have a good affiliate program, if he does not work to provide a good sales page, good promotional materials, good support, etc.

You, as an associate or affiliate, will not be successful, if you do not promote the product. If all you do is become an associate with the owner, you will not find the success that you were looking for.

Involvement by the owner and the affiliate is necessary for there to be success in affiliate marketing. Thus, it can be said, rather emphatically, that one of the secrets of promoting affiliate programs is involvement.