There are plenty of options to choose from when first starting out working online. You will find here one of the most popular and profitable ways of earning a decent income on the internet, affiliate marketing.

The Basics of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is essentially promoting someone else’s products. Companies and individuals offer up to a 75% commission of the sale of each product you refer a customer to and they buy the product. Around the world there are affiliates earning six figures from home just by doing this.

The three most basic affiliate programs on the Internet can be placed into the following categories:

• Pay Per Performance
• Pay Per click
• Residual Income Affiliate Marketing Programs

Pay Per Performance
Pay per performance (PPP) affiliate programs are what most companies and online merchant’s likes to use. The companies only pay when the affiliate referral translates into an action and this action can be a sale or lead. A cost is involved for the affiliate in this instance where the affiliate will spend their own money to promote the company's products.

2 sub-categories are contained within PPP affiliate programs:

Pay Per Sale (PPS) The affiliate is paid when a visitor referred by the affiliate makes a purchase.

Pay Per Lead (PPL) PPL is a little different to PPS. The affiliate will be paid a fixed commission whenever a visitor referred by him/her to the merchant's website requests a quote or fills up an online application form.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Affiliate Programs
PPC affiliate programs are the most popular. PPC programs are said to be the easiest way for web publishers to make money from their websites and blogs. Whenever a visitor clicks a banner or text ad displayed on the affiliate's website they are paid a certain amount, this can be $0.05 to $0.50 normally. PPC is typically used by contextual advertising companies like Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Networks and others.

Residual Income Affiliate Marketing Programs
In this type of program, the affiliate is compensated for every customer referred to the merchant's website, and is also paid whenever the referred customer returns to that site to buy another product.

Each type of affiliate marketing program has its own advantages and disadvantage leaving the decision to the affiliate as to which one best suits them.