Affiliate marketing is a bonanza. It is a practically inexhaustible market, and if you have a website, blog, or online chat group, you two could be making big money. But how do you cash in? And what exactly is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a marketing strategy where a merchant pays an affiliate when a sale is made due to the affiliate referring the customer to the merchant. The affiliate can be an individual or a business and usually does not receive a commission for referring customers if no sale is made. Affiliate marketing differs from referral marketing. In referral marketing, no commission is paid for referrals. Referrals are given based on trust, friendship, and industry networking. Affiliate marketing involves a profit motive.

Affiliate marketing has been effective in the online environment from the birth of the internet. Almost anyone who has a website can become an affiliate. It may be as simple as an individual affiliate placing contextual ads from merchants on his blog or website. For affiliates, this can become a passive revenue stream, bringing them potentially large commissions with little expense and maintenance.

A great example of a merchant with a hugely successful affiliate program is Amazon.com. Amazon affiliates will place banner ads or text links on their websites that link to either an individual book or to amazon.com. The affiliate gets a commission when an individual clicks from their website to amazon and buys a book. You have probably clicked on many banner ads or links while surfing the net, and perhaps you even made some purchases as a result. But you may not have known that someone was getting a commission off your sale.

This marketing technique is so effective on the web that Amazon tried to patent it. But amazon wasn't the only one trying to patent the process and met fierce competition for the patent rights. Why were all these companies so eager to not just employ affiliate marketing but also patent it? Because affiliate marketing is tremendously profitable. These companies clearly recognized the extreme power of affiliate marketing on the web, and that it is the wave of the future.

You also can cash in on affiliate marketing. If you have a website, blog, or online group, you can earn substantial revenue. But if you are not experienced in affiliate marketing, you will need some basic training. A great resource on the subject is the book "The Ultimate Online Profit Model," by John Chow, available at http://www.jamesrbrawnerjr.com This book will give you the expertise you need to make money as an affiliate marketer online and charts how affiliate marketing can bring in a six figure monthly income.

You could make big money online with Affiliate Marketer Basic Training. But to be successful, you need to know the ropes and Learn Affiliate Marketing. The most definitive resource can be found at http://www.jamesrbrawnerjr.com