WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE?
This word is used in a lot of different industries with meanings that are not the same as in the revenue sharing area. This is the reason that we call our web site AFFILIATE REFERRAL INCOME rather than just AFFILIATES or AFFILATE INCOME. The referral gives a more precise meaning to what an affiliate is all about. The traditional business organization (before the internet) relied upon sales people to find new customers. They had to hire them, train them and pay them based upon the accepted policies in the industry.	Today, the quest to find new business on the internet has led to these terms: affiliates, associates, resellers, partners, or remarketer. The main difference from the traditional sales person, is that affiliates are independent business people and not part of the company selling the products or services. With the traditional structure, the sales person was an actual employee of the parent company. The employee has all of the company benefits in addit\ion to being paid for his time. The independent agent structure is highly benefitial to the Selling Organization as they have much lower overhead and can actually sell their products and services at a lower cost.
WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE REFERRAL INCOME PROGRAM?
Let's use an example of a bookstore owner in your local neighborhood. For years they have done business the old fashioned way, advertising for new customers via newspapers,television and radio. Then one day the owner gets a bright idea, "What if I asked everyone of my customers to refer other potential customers to my bookstore? As an incentive to get them to do this I will pay each of them a referral fee based upon what the customer they referred does!" Each customer now becomes a sales representative (affiliate) for the bookstore and are given their very own business card. These cards are to be given out to anyone who is interested in buying books. Now when each new potential customer comes into the bookstore, he presents the card to the bookstore owner. How much the bookstore owner pays his affiliate, depends entirely upon what the new potential customer does after he is in the bookstore.	LOOK-AROUND...New customer just looks around the store and does not buy anything or sign up for any activities. This is equivalent to a Pay-Per-Click affiliate referral income program. The sales rep or affiliate would be paid $.10 just to get the potential customer to go into the bookstore. MAILING LIST...New customer in addition to looking around, decides that he would like to get further late breaking notifications about new books and provides his name and address to the bookstore owner. This is equivalent to a Pay-Per-Lead affiliate referral income program. The affiliate is now paid $.50 for each name and address that is submitted. BUYER...The new potential customer becomes an actual customer and buys a book! This is a Pay-Per-Sale affiliate referral income program. The affiliate is now paid 10% of whatever the customer buys.
WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE TWO-TIER PROGRAM?
TWO-TIER... Now the second tier is for the bookstore owners sales reps or affiliates. Each new customer is not only given their own unique business card to become an affiliate for the bookstore but the name of the affiliate that referred them in the first place is also on the business card. Now when a potential customer comes into the bookstore, they hand the bookstore owner a business card thati ndentifies both the affiliate and the affiliates affilate (sales manager). The bookstore owner now knows that he must not only pay referral fees to the affiliate but also to the affiliates sales manager.The sales manager is now paid 1% of the sales that each of his sales reps (affiliates) sold!	What an outstanding win-win situation for everyone. The whole community winds up working together in a unified sharing of information and income. If you would like to get started and become an affilate but do not have your own website yet, visit our TOP100 Affiliate Referral Income Programs. FREE web hosting is now available with your own domain name. Complete info on Affiliate Programs is available at our TOP100 Affiliate Referral Income Programs web site.
WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE ORGANIZER?
Now, an Affiliate Organizer, is an internet organization that represents many merchants selling products and services on the internet. Each of these affiliate organizer companies offers software and mangagement tools that allow for tracking, payments, promotion and other management functions. An affiliate organizer such as LINKSHARE INC, one of the largest and oldest, provides awesome online reporting and tracking reports for each of its affiliates and merchants. ADVANTAGES: It is usually much more efficient to deal with one affiliate organizer rather than signing up with 100's of individual companies. The tracking and reporting is consistant no matter how many merchants you are working with. For instance, LINKSHARE has over 150 merchants that they provide affiliate services for.One individual could sign up with LINKSHARE and never have to look elsewhere for an affiliate relationship.	Top business names are now entering this exciting new marketing concept, such as DELL COMPUTERS, L'EGGS PANTYHOSE, AVON, and yes even DISNEY! Just imagine that you can now earn income by referring visitors to your web site to Dell Computers at 3 am while you sleep....and next month a check arrives in the mail!!! DISADVANTAGES: Wow, do I ever have a hard time even coming close to a disadvantage! Perhaps if you are used to going to work and not having to perform while receiving a check each Friday, perhaps these people will be challenged to earn an income on the internet. Another disadvantage may be that the small entrepreneur will not be successful by simply throwing a bunch of banners on a FREE web page which is hosted on a FREE web server. In order to receive any kind of significant income on the internet utilizing affiliate referral income programs, the web site MUST have people visiting them in large numbers. To accomplish this the web site must have outstanding CONTENT!