I took quite sometime to understand what an Affiliate is and what is the so-called Affiliate Marketing. Until I took time to understand about the concept of Affiliate Marketing and its earning potential I had not taken it seriously. This article may be of some help to those who want to start their Home business with Affiliate Marketing, but are not familiar with its concept and potential.

1. Who is an Affiliate?

An affiliate is someone who joins with another merchants website to sell their products or services, on a commission basis.

2. Do we have to pay anything to become an Affiliate or join in an Affiliate Program?

Affiliate membership is free with most of the companies. There are companies where you have to buy their product and then automatically you become their affiliate. To start your career it is better to join with free affiliate programs.

3. What is Affiliate marketing?

An affiliate through his/her own efforts drives traffic to the companys website to generate sales. The affiliate gets the commission from the company for his productive efforts.

4. How does an affiliate drive traffic to the companys site in order to produce a sale?

Most of the companies teach their affiliates in their members area for free, and also through their newsletters. If you educate yourself with the proper training it will not be difficult to get more visitors. They educate their affiliates to succeed because their success lies in their affiliates success.

5. Which types of companies are best to join?

Any company that offers a decent percentage of commission to their affiliates are good to join and do affiliate marketing for them. The companies who offer two-tier payments will be better to get more commission.

6. What is meant by two-tier payments?

The company rewards their affiliates for their own sales generated and also a smaller percentage of the commission of the sales produced by their sub-affiliates who are recruited by these affiliates. For example, if an affiliate gets 30% (or whatever percentage) as commission for his/her own productive efforts and also gets paid for the efforts of his/her sub-affiliates (say about 50 in number) a smaller percentage (say about 10%) of all the 50 sub-affiliates, the Affiliate gets a better income for his Affiliate Marketing business.