Making Money

Start With Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are terrific ways for budding webmasters to generate income with newer sites that don't get many hits. Affiliate sites refer traffic to other web pages, in return for a cut of profits. Some affiliate programs will pay a fixed rate per click, while others will pay only for clicks that end in a sale or sign-up. Affiliate programs seem like a great idea all around, giving commercial sites more traffic and paying the referring site for their promotional ability, but there are a few catches.

While many sites join affiliate programs and successfully refer customers to their affiliate sites, a large percentage of them never get paid. This isn't because they've been cheated. It's because they haven't paid attention to the small print of their affiliate agreement. Most sites with an affiliate agreement require their affiliates to generate a minimum amount of revenue before they receive a cheque. For some sites, it's $5, others $20, $50 or even $100. This rule is an understandable one; no site wants to send out a cheque whose value is less than the postage required to mail it. Affiliates have to remember that not every visitor to their site will click an affiliate link, and not every visitor to an affiliate site will spend money or sign up. It could take a long time to rack up the required minimum payment amount.

There is hope for prospective affiliates, and it lies with a company called Commission Junction. Their job is to run affiliate programs for web sites. They are a great site to deal with because they offer a one-stop site where webmasters can evaluate and join a wide variety of affiliate programs in a host of categories. The best thing about signing up with Commission Junction is that web affiliate sites are paid when the total revenue from all of their affiliate links reaches the minimum value (currently $25). If a site signed up with 5 affiliate programs, and each program generated five dollars, then the site would receive a cheque. The variety of affiliate programs available, the fantastic reporting and control pages provided and the pooled affiliate payment system result in an opportunity that most sites can't afford to pass up. This program is very highly recommended.

Someone else sells the ads and you collect the money? Ad Networks: How They Work

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