There are hundreds of websites today that offer advice and details as to how a person can earn millions in a few years time. These are basically ‘get-rich-quick’ ideas that rarely work out most of the time. The Internet is a great place to make money and affiliate marketing is a part of it. Although many of the get-rich-quick ideas require you to do a lot of work for a small cost, many ideas are designed to work only at a high start up cost. These ideas usually have a high failure rate and are not opted for by individuals who know how the system works. Affiliate marketing is quite different from various other ways of earning money online and has its set of distinct advantages. Let’s look at a few of them.

Usually when a person markets their product using direct marketing or any other method, they are restricted to certain geographical areas. Affiliate marketing works in a way where you can sell anything to anyone around the world, as long as they have an Internet connection. The Internet serves a global audience and thus the advantage of marketing your product or service to millions of people. This can also be an advantage if you are serving a niche market. For instance, there may be a few people who are interested in the product you are selling. But with affiliate marketing, you will have customers from all over the world with similar tastes that want your product.

Affiliate marketing gives you the chance of selling to a specific niche. To further clarify this, affiliate marketing lets you choose a program that aligns with the niche you are targeting. Amazon is a retailer that provides such affiliate marketing programs.

Another advantage of affiliate marketing is the ability to make money even while you are asleep. For instance, if you live in America and your potential customer lives in Australia, he or she would be able to click on the referral link and make a purchase even when you are fast asleep. Your presence need not be there for a sale to take place.

Affiliate marketing is cheap and easy to start as most companies that provide affiliate marketing programs don’t charge the affiliate when they enter into the affiliate relationship. When you have a referral link, it makes promoting your product easier. For example, you could paste the link on your blog, post it on forums, etc.