There are several types of affiliate programs.  If you don't have your own website, you are somewhat limited, but you can find more programs here that provide a website for you to promote..  But if you do have your own website, you have access to hundreds of options and your income potential is much higher.  

Free to join - no upgrading necessary

Let's talk about the easiest affiliate programs first.  These are free to join and you don't need to upgrade or pay a membership fee to qualify for commissions.  These companies will pay you ONLY when you make sales.  Some may also pay you on one or more level of referrals.  There is NO residual income because there are no monthly fees to pay.  

Here the catch is to make sure that if one of your customers buys products every so often but does not always go through your site that you will be credited for the sales every time.  I've seen programs out there that pay for ONE SALE ONLY, meaning that if the same customer returns regularly, you'll never earn more money other than the first original transaction.  If that's the case, you say Thanks, but no thanks!  Make sure you read their FAQ and terms and conditions or agreement.  

The most ethical companies will have a system in place to track sales back to you from your customers and allow you to keep them for life.  These are the affiliate programs you're looking for.

The majority of affiliate programs in this category will require you to have your own website.  But a few will either supply a sales page for you or give you an affiliate link that will lead customers directly to their website so that you can promote the program or make sales without having a website of your own.

In these programs, you don't need to recruit to make money.  What you have to do is make sales.  The more sales you make, the more money will be flowing into your pockets.  Your income depends on YOUR efforts.

Affiliate programs - internet and home businesses

This is by far where you'll find the most common scams on the internet.  Visit our sections on recognize a scam, work at home scams, and examples of scams.

Some are free to join but if you want to qualify for higher commissions and residual income you need to upgrade or pay membership fees.  If you choose not to pay anything, you'll earn commissions on retail sales and a one time commission on your referrals.  Some programs may not allow you to earn anything unless you have made the step to upgrade yourself.  Make sure you fully understand the compensation plan BEFORE you jump in.

BEWARE before you join and pay money to any of them.  Do your homework, it could save you from going broke and taking your friends with you!

Affiliate programs are companies that will pay you a commission to sell their products or services.  Most of the time they will also have a MLM pay plan structure, which means that when you recruit others into the affiliate program, you will be paid commissions on their sales as well.  Compensation plans vary from one program to another, and you should be familiar with the one you choose and fully understand it BEFORE you spend your money.

These companies will provide you, usually at no extra cost, with a sales website (some offer more than one) which is called an affiliate website, or affiliate link.  You will need to advertise and promote your website(s) to make sales and/or recruit people into the affiliate program.

Although some of these internet opportunities are free to join, nothing is ever really free.  If everyone joined for free and never sold or bought anything, where would the money come from to pay you and everyone else?   Someone will have to buy something to generate commissions.  In many programs, this will likely be you.

With several affiliate programs, in order to earn the most commissions, you will have to buy something every month to qualify for higher income or multiple income streams.  Sometimes you'll be buying products and other times you'll be buying a service, which will constitute your upgrading or membership fee.  Also these products and services you are buying may be recurring every month, or they will be a one time fee.  If they are recurring, find out BEFORE you buy it whether it will keep you "upgraded" every month by subscribing to this, or if you'll have to purchase something new every month to keep your status.  This may become very expensive after a while, so make sure you know what you're paying for and what you get out of it. 

This is a perfectly legal practice, and most of it is based on the MLM structure, as long as products and/or services can be and ARE retailed.  If the only, or the majority of, customers are members of the program who only buy from the company to stay upgraded, BEWARE!  This would be very close to being a pyramid because you will always have to find new members to buy while no product or service is ever retailed to non-participants.  When members stop buying, the program disappears.  With your money.

Make sure you contact the site owner of the program you are considering before joining (NOT the owner(s) of the program, but the person whose site you are visiting - if the only contact information is the program owner or the corporate office, STAY AWAY - you won't hear the truth from them if there's anything to be worried about) , ask questions, type the name of the program in a search engine and find out what people have to say about it.

What should you look for in a good affiliate program and those to avoid at all costs - it's YOUR money!

• Look for a company that will put your name and/or your contact information on your sales page.  If all requests for information go straight to the owner or the corporate office, you will never know whether people have tried to contact you for info or if they joined the program.  The owner of the program can steal (and many do, you just don't know it!) referrals and sales from their affiliates.  Remember that con artists are con artists for a reason, they can fool anyone into believing they are honest and ethical.

• Make sure that your sponsor's name or upline is clearly listed somewhere with their contact information to get in touch with them.  If you don't know who your sponsor is or can't contact them, you could be moved from his/her downline to another without your or your sponsor's knowledge.  And the same could happen to your own referrals.  Again, that's a question of integrity and honesty.  Many programs don't provide this information.   There's a good reason for this.  If you can't contact your upline, STAY AWAY!  The best affiliate programs will provide you with the email address, phone number and street address of your upline and/or referrals.

• Read the Terms of Service (TOS) carefully.  Look for a clause that relates to "opt out affiliates" and  "switching downlines".  Good affiliate programs all have rules for these situations.  Normally, once an affiliate has opted out, they can't rejoin the program for a minimum of six months. 

• If there is no rule in effect about switching downlines, your efforts to recruit would be negated by people who join under you then opt out and rejoin under a friend or someone else who promised them more.  If your program doesn't say anything about these circumstances, you should rethink your stand to join, especially if there is a fee involved.  STAY AWAY.  Find a more ethical program that clearly states their rules and terms and conditions where there is no room to move affiliates from one downline to another or for affiliates to jump from one referrer to another anytime they please without your knowledge.  If it looks like one of your affiliates opted out, who's to say that they were not moved or moved themselves in someone else's downline?  How do you know for sure?

• Look at the compensation plan and make sure it's not targeted for people at the top only.  See how much new people in the program can earn compared to the higher level positions.  If most of the money goes to people above you and only a very small percentage is allocated to new recruits, it's an unfair plan.  But don't mistake this for bonuses for higher positions - in most programs, the higher level you can achieve, the most money you will make, and that's fair.  However if 50% of the commissions go to the higher ups and only 10% to new affiliates for example, you should question the compensation plan and rethink your position.

• If the compensation plan pays you for referrals only and/or there is no product or service, STAY AWAY!  That's a definite scam.

• If the program talks about "cycling", "benefactor", "gifting", "make lots of money doing nothing", "make $10,000 per month next month", "our products cure cancer, diabetes, etc." - Run away and never look back!

• An affiliate program that totally changes its sales page often is a business that is not making sales.  Most common reason:  the program is worthless to the mass population!  The owner(s) will never admit that, so they look for other reasons, thinking that changing the sales page regularly will bring in the sales.  WRONG!  Beware of these programs.  If they have problems selling their products and/or services, so will you! 

• Changes in compensation plan mean that the company and affiliates are hurting.  The company is looking for ways to make more money while trying to help affiliates earn more commissions.  How often do they change the compensation plan?  If it's a regular occurrence, BEWARE!  You could do very well with the current compensation plan today just to have the carpet lifted from under your feet with the next one that will send you to the poor house along with your downline.

• Check how long this particular program has been in business.  Are they well known online?  What type of reputation do they have?  What have you heard?  Check with others, email the person who would be your sponsor, ask questions.  Don't be alarmed if they're also new and not earning lots of money yet.  Ask them to be honest.  Sometimes these people turn out to be much better sponsors than the big names who don't have time for the little guy once you gave them money.

• Have you ever received spam promoting this opportunity?  Regularly?  Do they have a spam policy?  If they don't have a spam policy in place and you receive a lot of unwanted emails promoting this particular business, the program will be shut down sooner rather than later due to spam complaints.  

• There is only one instance that joining at the top will benefit you:  when it's a scam.  Any good business opportunity will allow you to make money whether you join the day it starts, one year from now, or 5 years from now.

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