Xavier Media®

You probably already know that an affiliate network is a group of individuals who market your products on your behalf, and in return receives a commission on each sale they send your way. Commissions in the information marketing world can range from 50-75 percent, and sometimes can be as much as 100 percent.

Many information marketers forego the affiliate network tactic for two main reasons:

1. They think they will earn more money if they sell themselves.
2. They think it takes too much time or is too difficult to set up an affiliate program.

Let’s look at these one at a time:

Myth: Affiliates cost you money.

Now, agreed, 50 percent of your revenue may seems like a lot of clams to shell out for your affiliates… but think of it this way:

100 percent of nothing is… NOTHING.

50 percent of something is… MORE THAN NOTHING.

In other words, affiliates drive customers to you that may never have heard of your product, thereby ADDING to your bottom line, not taking away your hard-earned revenues. Each and every sale by an affiliate should be viewed as added revenue that you would not have otherwise earned.

Myth: It takes a lot of time to set up and manage an affiliate program.

Affiliate programs can be as complex as you want them to be. You can take a completely hands-off approach and use a system like Clickbank or Shareasale that will put you in touch with a database of affiliates looking for products to promote (the site takes a share of your revenues in exchange for managing your program). Or you can create your own affiliate program using a service like e-Junkie for as little as $5 a month. It’s up to you.

And while you can spend hours creating materials for your affiliates and training them about your products, that’s time invested in selling. Remember: Each sale an affiliate makes adds to your bottom line.

To find all the articles in this series, look for the tag Marketers Mistakes.

About the author
Nicole is an expert in Affiliate Management, Affiliate Marketing, and Marketing with Content. She's managing multiple sites like for example EasyPLR, IncomeCPR and SuccessPLR where you can get quality content for your blog and also learn a thing or two.