Becoming an affiliate for someone else's products seems like the logical first choice for the inexperienced. But how exactly do you go about making your very first affiliate earnings? Here is a simple affiliate marketing system in five steps to help you get organised.

1. Choosing a niche: Do what you love, but make sure there's money in it!

It is oft said: Do what you love, and the money will come. Not quite, I am afraid. You have to find an area you will enjoy working in. There is no point choosing to sell affiliate products for (say) cat care products if you hate cats. Working in a niche in which you have no interest is a recipe for failure-- you'll never persist long enough to attain any kind of success.

On the other hand, your chosen niche has to have money in it You will need to do both: strike a balance between what you love, and where you may be able to make money.

2. Choosing a product: Can you stand over it?

If you are going to do what it takes to be successful as an affiliate marketer, you will need to feel proud of your product. Sounds old fashioned, but it's true. Affiliate earnings are sweetest when you have come by them ethically.

People will smell you out if you promote a product you cannot stand over. Moreover, you will not feel good about yourself and your business, and you will be headed for failure-- unless, of course, you are a completely dishonest person. I trust you are not!

3. Choosing to be an affiliate: Are you ready to roll up your sleeves?

Becoming a successful product affiliate is a conscious choice. Too many people sign up to be affiliates because it typically costs them nothing to do so. The vast majority of affiliates fail not for lack of skill, but for lack of commitment. Those people never committed to their product, to their business, and to themselves. The best, most elaborate affiliate marketing system will not make you money if you never decide to actually work your system.

So, choose success, and choose to work for your future.

4. Choosing when to start: No time like the present!

Another major cause of failure in this business-- and in life!-- is postponing the beginning. So many people are just afraid to started!

Your digital product vendor will have given you a variety of marketing tools to get started with. These might be banner ads, promotional emails, sales pages of various sorts, as well as a program for getting paid your commissions.

If you have chosen a good vendor, he or she will have provided you with good tools. These people test and test and test again-- so you have some assurance that the sales materials are good enough for you to get going.

So... just get started. Your first efforts might be crude. So what? Refine them; see what works; throw out what doesn't; but most of all, get going and keep going. Here's a motto for you: Fail fast, fail often. Failure is a lot more fun when you are not looking over your shoulder. Think about it!

5. Choosing to be a cheapskate: Don't spend money you don't have!

Be a cheapskate. Never spend money you if you don't have to. Your earliest marketing efforts should focus on the lowest cost traffic available. Use articles. Promote yourself in forums. Use social networking. Get creative on this one. The point is: start making sales with the smallest possible outlay.

Once you have got some stuff going, then reinvest and go for more expensive types of marketing. Pay per click, fancier websites, an autoresponder for your subscription list. They all cost money-- so do it later, not now.

That's it guys: five steps to get your first affiliate earnings. This little affiliate marketing system is just common sense-- and that's the point. First, do what you love, but be profitable. Second, promote only good products. Third, make a decision you are going to succeed. Fourth, start NOW, and don't stop. Finally, save your pennies so they can become dollars. Now... was that hard?