Is affiliate marketing a profitable business for affiliates? Or do only affiliate networks and advertisers earn on it? If you are just thinking about how to be involved in this sphere or move further there are some simple rules which will help you to understand that. Let’s get down to business.

First rule. You need to spend at least 8 hours per day to make your affiliate marketing strategy work, especially at the beginning . Dude, if you dream that you can make just 10 clicks in your approved account and then just take all the cash you are wrong!  For example, publisher Mr. Brown, who earned his first million rubles when he was 16 y.o., has been learning IT since he started to study at school.  So, be ready to spend a lot of time on learning all the AM working principles. There is no easy money to get for sure.  When you are in pursuit of getting easy money in affiliate marketing you can only fritter away your ad budget, that’s it. So, let’s talk about your budget.

Second rule. For a good start you should have your own source of the internet traffic: website, blog etc. or a good budget for your ad camping. You should have at least $1k to make it work in order to test traffic’s sources and make a try to earn a bit.  If you don’t have money or your own source of good traffic you should be ready for a long challenging way in affiliate marketing or just quit.

Third  rule.  Be careful when you choose an affiliate network you will be dealing with.  Check its website first. Everything must be clear even for newbies: its policies and FAQ (how to work with this affiliate network).  Try to contact an affiliate manager. Look at his/her work: how soon he/she answers your questions, what the quality of his/her answers is. Do they help you or are there just common phrases without no particular information?  If the qualification of an affiliate manager is high and he/she gives you specific deadlines of your problem’s salvation this affiliate network is quite good.  Look through the affiliate marketing forums. In a professional community there are a lot of experienced people who just screwed up and lost a lot of money in the past and started to earn again. Their pieces of advice may help you to make the right choice. But look at a personal rate of these advisers; they should be hot shots in affiliate marketing. Moreover, remember, you don’t need to stop at one affiliate network. You can choose several of them and see with which your work is better. Do not be swayed by very high payouts. When an affiliate network has higher payouts than all the other networks it may be just a plan to attract affiliates. You probably will get lower approve rate in the end.  So shouldn’t be so greedy and choose average offer’s payouts for not to lose more.

Forth rule.  Offers choosing and promotion.  You should know the sphere which offers belong to.  If you don’t know customers’ needs and seasonality of products you promote you won’t bring leads.  For example, if you are not a professional you can ask google (Google’s Product Search) about customers’ preferences. Pay attention to platforms for product’s  promotion. It should be niche sources where your customers inhabit: forums, classified, blogs, public pages in social networks.

So if you want to make affiliate marketing profitable for you say “goodbye” to childish dream that you can get fast and easy money. Be ready to spend your time and money and you can make a good start in affiliate marketing. And after some period of time, you will teach newbies with your “profitable” pieces of advice at professional community forums.

Good luck!