The Basics of Internet Marketing

Many of the people in my personal life have no idea how I make money on the internet.

Most know I run a web hosting company and host thousands of websites. They figure, “that must obviously come with some level of residual income”, but beyond that they have no idea what my internet operations entail.

So, drum roll please….

BIG REVEAL: A growing chunk of my income comes mostly from my online marketing campaigns in profitable niches, and my various online marketing & affiliate efforts in general.

What this means is… I push traffic on several large mainstream networks, my own three networks, and several lucrative internal affiliate programs.

“Cool” you might say, what the HELL does that mean? Push? Traffic?

So, okay, let me try and break it down for you a bit. If it’s something you find interesting… it might just change your life!

Internet marketing is pretty simple at its core

Buzz terms aside, the core of the traditional “affiliate mindset” boils down to a simple “performance-based” model.

In other words, just like in the real world of “kick backs” and “finders fees” if you can refer an online visitor to make a sale, or get them to perform some action, you can get paid for it!

You put an offer in front of a visitor, they perform an action… you earn money. As a merchant, your ideal “action” is that the visitor converts into a paying customer and buys a product or service.

As an affiliate, it could simply be a person filling out their zip code for a search, or entering their email and pressing go. The exact action is specific to the campaign, and your role in it.

As an affiliate, an offer you might promote could literally be as simple as a web page with a text box asking for the visitor to enter their email to win a free iPad, or any popular prize.

Other common offers are debt and educational campaigns, which ask for someone’s contact details so that an organization can follow up with a phone call and further information.

When a person completes a form, or whatever the action required in the campaign terms, an affiliate receives a conversion, and gets paid by the network or advertiser.

As you can guess, these conversions can stack up pretty quickly when you have a good method of promotion, and ultimately put a lot of cash in your pocket.

The Modern Affiliate Lifestyle

The professional affiliates job is much like any other marketing career, but with much more freedom. The basic idea is to run campaigns that drive many targeted individuals to an offer you think they’ll be interested in, and likely to convert, which then earns you a large return.

Beyond that, it becomes a science (and art) of campaign optimization, efficiency, scale, cash-flow, and a bunch of other goodness you’ll only learn from hands-on experience. This is putting it stupidly simple, but that’s affiliate marketing in a nutshell.

If you’re serious about making large volumes of money on the internet, this is all obvious. Connect the dots, and your wallet gets fat overnight. For most newbies, they think this a load of crap. How can it possibly be that easy?

Basic… doesn’t always mean “Easy”

Just because the basic concept is easy to follow, doesn’t mean actually putting it into practice is always as easy as it sounds.

Any full-time affiliate will probably tell you life wasn’t always that carefree and lavish. They probably put numerous hours into researching, experimenting, reading, making money, losing money, learning lessons, discovering new methods, and so much more.

There’s a lot of time and effort that can go into learning a thorough understanding of internet marketing, and the mechanisms and industry behind it. It usually takes even longer to begin applying that knowledge, and making it tangibly profitable.

Most people like to assume affiliate marketing is a lazy job, since you can do it from your home, in your pajamas. While this can be true in some instances, most online workers know the affiliate industry for what it is, a lucrative and worthwhile career. Most people in the online affiliate marketing industry know life is all about working smarter, not harder.

So get started, it wont happen by itself

The biggest thing stopping you from making money online is simply the fact that you’re not doing anything to push yourself further towards your goals.

If you coast through life, wishing you had attained all these great things, it simply doesn’t happen.

So get motivated, get on the AllHatter internet marketing forums, start reading my blog, and search google for affiliate marketing. Or, if you’re confident you’re ready to start making some serious money online, apply at my two public advertising networks, ChaseClicks and CPA Dough and mention you heard about them from my blog!