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Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online if you join a good program. If you are in a bad program you can waste a lot of your valuable time and never make any money.

Before we get into what makes a good program to join let's give you an affiliate marketing definition. Sometimes I get to talking about affiliate marketing and forget that some people are not familiar with this business model.

Basically affiliate marketing is a widespread method of promoting a website, in which an affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. You can make money by the click, by the lead, or by the sale. Millions of people do it everyday.

So what should you be looking at before you join an affiliate program.

1. What is the product? You want to be promoting products that are in demand right now. Niche affiliate marketing programs are big because they let you narrow down a broad market into a smaller one.

2. How much does it pay? What is the commission you will earn for the action you complete?

Affiliate marketing generally pay very generous commissions. For example, ClickBank will pay affiliates as high as 75% to sell digital information. Info products online are good products to sell!

There are cost per action lead programs that pay several hundred dollars per lead. You really can make a lot of money with affiliate marketing.

3. When do you get paid? Most affiliate merchants have improved tremendously in this regard.

There are even instant pay affiliate programs where you don't have to wait for your commissions at all. Click Bank will pay you every week via direct deposit once you get sales coming in on a regular basis.

Some programs will pay monthly, or even make you wait several weeks into the following month before you get paid. Just be sure you understand when your commission checks will be sent to determine whether you want to join that affiliate program or not.

4. Marketing materials? Let me just briefly say that you will get a website and materials to promote it.

Some affiliate programs are better than others. Be sure and look closely at the marketing materials to make sure they are something you can promote.

Affiliate marketing is not a difficult business model to understand. Look closely at any affiliate program to determine if it's something you can make money with and a program you want to join beore wasting your time.