So what is affiliate marketing that we all hear so much about? Many people claim to make a lot of money from it online. How do they do that? Let’s take a closer look at this concept.

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is method of selling when the referrers (affiliates) of sales get a commission for each sale. The concept was first introduced by Amazon in mid 90s and it was the major factor of the success of this company. Later, many other companies followed and we have the affiliate marketing as one of the biggest pillars of Internet marketing as it is today.

The next important point is that most of the time, everyone is free to join an affiliate program and start brining clients. This low barrier of entry enables literally anyone to start making online. You don’t need a website, you don’t have to know anything about how to create one, you don’t have to have your own product, and still make money.

But there are also challenges to affiliate marketing. Let me give you an analogy. Let’s imagine that Walmart gave away special coupons that would give a discount for each buyer and a commission to you as a distributor of those coupons. Let’s also assume that every buyer gets a bunch of these coupons with their own special code every time they buy. What would happen is exactly what is happening online – thousands of affiliate selling the same thing.

It doesn’t matter to a buyer whose coupon they’re buying with (assuming they can’t buy with their own coupons), so they can grab one from anyone. People wanting to to make commission would give those coupons everywhere… what would you do if a there were hundreds of people offering their coupons by the entry to Walmart? Where would you offer yours?

The commons sense tells us to go where no-one else is. Unfortunately because the online world is rather new to beginners, they all crowd up in the obvious places… and they make a zilch.

If you want to be a successful affiliate, think outside the box.