In this holiday season online shopping is hotter than ever! nAccording to US Commerce Department online sales continue to ngrow with a robust 25-27 percent this year over 1992. Online nholiday shopping at a rate of 10 percent is also considerably noutpacing the 5.7 percent growth of overall retail sales. Goldman nSachs predicts 23 percent of all gift-buying this holiday season nwill take place online!nnSo, if you don’t have a product of your own to sell online, how ncan you profit from this exciting trend?nnOne of the finest ways of making money online is to promote nother people’s products or services by becoming their naffiliates. Affiliate is a term used for a website that drives ntraffic to another website in exchange for a predetermined ncommission.nnThanks to the success of several affiliate programs in nthe early days of online business, most merchant websites, ntoday, use some kind of affiliate programs to promote their nsites and generate sales.nnConsidering the sheer numbers of affiliate programs navailable on the Internet, you may feel overwhelmed. nHowever, if you set some basic criteria, it would be lot neasier to find a good program that suits your need.nnFree sign upnnThe affiliate program that you are planning to join must nbe absolutely free. There are way too many good programs navailable for free, why should you pay for one? Moreover, nthe programs that require payments to join are mostly multi nLevel Marketing (MLM) programs. Although, there may be manyngood MLM programs existing on the Internet, I don’t think nit’s a viable option for an average person.nnGood commissionnnYou deserve handsome compensation for all your hard work! nNo matter, how you look into it, in most of the cases,npromoting a product or service is not an easy job. Since you nare doing the uphill struggle of bringing the client to the nmerchant’s door, your commission should be real good one. nWhat is an acceptable commission anyway? If you are promoting nan information product, don’t go for less than 50 percent. nFor more tangible products and services your bare minimum ncommission should be 15 percent of the sale. If you are npromoting monthly subscription, choose a program that pays na portion of subscription fee as recurring commission to nyou as long as the client referred by you stays subscribed.nnTow-tier affiliate programnnAn affiliate program which pays certain percent as a ncommission from the sale for bringing in a client and nanother if that client brings in other clients. Two-tier naffiliate programs are more preferable since once a client nbase is built, it becomes a great source of residual nincome.nnQuality affiliate tracking systemnnThe merchant should have a very good and well-organized naffiliate sales tracking management software system. You nhave to be absolutely comfortable with the statistics ngenerated by the affiliate program. The program should nshow such important aspects as repurchase, if any, by the nclient referred by you, your second tier affiliates, nactivities by your second tier clients, etc.If you do not nfeel comfortable with the tracking system provided by a nmerchant, better stick to the merchants, who use third party naffiliate managing system. At least, you will know that a ndishonest merchant won’t be able to defraud you.nnEfficient customer supportnnYou should feel satisfied with the service and support you nget from your affiliate program owner. A good program highlynvalues its affiliates and gives priority to its customer nsupport system. As the clients that you are sending to thenmerchant are primarily your site’s visitors, you should be nextremely picky about the quality of customer service the nprogram renders. After all, your own site’s reputation is nalso at stake here!nnPromotional materialsnnIf you are planning to promote an affiliate program, you nwill need more materials then mere banners. Unfortunately, neven many high-end affiliate programs do not carry enough npromotional materials to satisfy the need of the affiliates.nPromotional material should include: contents to build nmini-sites, various ad articles, different kind of text nlinks, product brochures or presentation, etc.nnCommission payment policynnThe affiliate program should have a sort of minimum payment npolicy, where you can receive commissions if even you have nmade just one or two sales. A reasonable amount is US $25. nLess than that is not viable due to processing costs. nCommission should be paid each month. If you are located noutside of US, see if the merchant makes payment through nPaypal or other similar services or not. For most of the ncountries checks issued in other countries are not a good noption.nnIf an affiliate program meets all these above mentioned ncriteria, you can consider joining in this program. However, nto get best result from your efforts, before signing up, you nshould also consider the following rules:nnYou have to like the product you are promotingnAny salesman will confirm you that this is one of the nfundamental rules of selling. If you are selling a product nor service you must have confidence in it. If you like the nproduct and will use it yourself gladly, you found a product nto promote! Don’t waste your time with a product that is notn up to your taste!nnPromote a product or service consistent to your website’snsubject matter If your site is all about soccer, you will nbe better off with products and service related to soccer. nIf this same site promotes,for example: pesticides, no matter nhow hard you try your success will be very limited! Before njoining in any affiliate program first you should identify nwho your visitors are, what do they like and which products nthey will probably buy online. Once you know your niche marketnit’s lot easier to find products or services for it.nnMany webmasters think that in order to make money through naffiliate programs, all you have to do is to come up with a nsite and fill up the site with affiliate links. Sooner all nlater people will click on them. Unfortunately this does not nwork! Making money through affiliate programs is also a nbusiness and like any business you have to have a proper nbusiness plan. Only a well prepared businessplan followed nby its meticulous implementation can bring success to nyour affiliate endeavor.