By Zachary Scott

If you are reading this, it is probably because you want to start Affiliate Marketing, or because you have heard it is a good method to make money online, or you have already started and tried but have not figured out how it all works.

What is affiliate marketing? Affiliate Marketing is to market via promotions, websites, ads, and other vehicles of promotion, products for other companies, and to receive commissions for each sale these promotions have directly caused. This may seem complicated but I will give you a classic example, which will clarify things for you.

Example case of an affiliate Marketer You put a banner ad for a television on a website. A person clicks on that ad, and is redirected to XYZ Company, on the product page of the television. The person then buys the television. Since you have an affiliate agreement with XYZ Company, you get Xpercentage of the sale.

It is simple really! You get commissions for sales you give to vendors.

Now you are probably asking yourself a great question that I would love to answer!

How do I become an affiliate marketer? There are two ways to become an affiliate marketer. The first is searching the net for different companies, and looking for an affiliate program on their sites. You can then register with them. Some of them will require a phone call to verify your identity and such, others not. It is an effective way, but it is harder to compare.

Another way to get into the Affiliate Marketing business is to register with a third-party website such as Clickbank or Commission Junction. These are great, because they will let you choose from hundreds, if not thousands of different products relevant to what you want. You can even search in these products to find what you want and choose between competitors. If you think this will cut into your commissions, you are wrong. You can get up to 75% commissions on sales from these third-party websites. Therefore, I personally suggest this option further, at least for beginners.

Why should I use Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate Marketing is great because you only have to promote and wait, really! Of course, the more active you are in promoting, the more money you are going to make. Truly, the best thing about this though, is that you do not have to worry about a lot of the "back end" stuff. I am talking about customer support; billing issues. In fact, you do not have to know a thing about the product you are selling, except for the basics to be able to promote it well.

I hope this helps anyone asking oneself what Affiliate Marketing is, and others who were wondering where to start out.

The author of this article runs http://bloggingto-thebank.blogspot.com/, which is his blog that is intended to help people make money online.

He has been making money online for some time now, make sure to read all the articles for their content and you might want to sign-up for the free ebook that develops more on the subject of this article.