There are many ebooks on the Internet that are being sold at
ridiculously high prices claiming that they will show you how to
get tons of free traffic and sales with no advertising.

Do yourself a favour and save your money.  I will tell you the
secret right here in this article.

The secret is running your own affiliate program.

According to Jupiter Communications, 25 percent of the expected
$37.5 billion in Internet retail sales, not including autos,
will have originated from affiliate sites in 2002.

Why?

Because affiliate programs work well for the individual or
company that is running the affiliate program.

Affiliate marketing is also known as a referral-based marketing
strategy, in which the merchants pay affiliates commissions for
referring business to the merchant's website.

This is a great *viral marketing* strategy that has literally
made companies millions of dollars in additional sales.

Having affiliates promote your product or service is like having
a little army of salespeople selling your product or service
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Having an affiliate program is more powerful than running your
own advertisements because your affiliates have a direct
interest in your business and will aggressively promote your
product or services to more targeted people.

Internet marketers are not interested in advertising with the
traditional CPM model anymore.  They want results-based
advertising and that is exactly what running your own affiliate
program provides.

Remember that an affiliate is trying just as hard to sell your
product as you would to make a commission.  Networks or ezines
that you purchase ads in do not really care how well your ad
performs because they do not have a direct interest.

The best part about running an affiliate program is that you
only pay an affiliate a commission when they make you a sale.
I don't know of any other marketing strategy that lets you make
money without any advertising and very little effort on your
part.

An easy way to run an affiliate program is through an affiliate
network like Clickbank.com or Commission Junction.  These
networks host hundreds of merchant affiliate programs and take
care of everything from stats tracking to cutting the affiliate
checks.

But there are downfalls of using affiliate networks to run your
affiliate program, which are:

1. You do not control the affiliate, the network does.  Although
networks already have an established base of affiliates that
will join your program, these same affiliate will be promoting
other affiliate programs in the network.  It will be very
difficult for you to develop a relationship with your affiliates
if you do not have any control over them.

2. Affiliate networks usually require a considerable commission
when every sale is made.  This is an additional cost of doing
business on an affiliate network besides the set up and ongoing
monthly fees that they may charge you.  On most affiliate
networks, this fee is usually a set percentage of the commission
amount you pay affiliates.

For example, if you pay an affiliate a $20 commission and the
network requires 10%, you will owe the network an additional
$2.00.

3. It will be very hard for you to get your marketing materials
to your affiliate such as text ads, banners and solo ads.  The
network controls all the administration pages, not you.

4. If you decide not to use an affiliate network anymore, you
will not be able to take the affiliates with you.  Remember that
these are the affiliates of the network, not your program.

Here are a few affiliate networks:

Clickbank
http://www.clickbank.com

Commission Junction
http://www.cj.com

Linkshare
http://www.linkshare.com

AffiliateWindow.com
http://www.affiliatewindow.com

The Affiliate Network
http://www.affiliatenetwork.com

Controlling your own affiliate program gives you more
flexibility and you can make changes almost immediately.  Do
you want to pay-per-lead or pay-per-click?  Maybe you want to
stay on the safe side and pay only after the sale is made?

Regardless, you decide how much of a commission you want to pay
without having to worry how much money the affiliate network
will take as their cut.

In order to run your *own* affiliate program, you will need to
purchase software that will administer the affiliate program.
There are various affiliate management programs out on the
Internet and prices can range from as low as $10 up to a few
thousand dollars.

I have listed a few decent affiliate software programs:

My Affiliate Program
http://www.myaffiliateprogram.com/u/a2/u/myap/b.asp?id=14081

Ultimate Affiliate
http://groundbreak.com/cgi-bin/affiliate/clickthru.cgi?id=Gauher

Assoctrac
http://assoctrac.com

The potential downfall of running an affiliate program is that
if an affiliate starts spamming their affiliate URL all over the
Internet, you could find that your ISP shutting you down.

That is why it is very important that you specify in the
affiliate agreement, which forms of advertising are allowed.