Affiliate marketing is often sold as the ultimate big red easy button. Go find a product at one of the huge affiliate sites like Clickbank and send traffic to the sales page with your affiliate link. Collect huge checks over and over. Only do that and it is a myth.

Smart marketers know it takes more than just traffic to be a successful affiliate. Smart marketers create a system of some type to promote affiliate products. List building and follow up is always at the center of their system.

It usually consists of a free giveaway of some type or what I call an ethical bribe to get permission to follow up with those people. This can be a free report, an audio interview, a video, an e-course or a combination of any or all of the above.

This requires having an autoresponder and a 3 page web site system to get the subscriber on to your list.
You need to create a follow up series to promote the product on a continuing basis. This can be tied in to more free reports, videos or just training to help your subscriber see the value of the product you are promoting.

This is necessary because most people won't buy the first time they see a product. It may not be the right time. It may be something that they are not quite ready for. That is one of the reasons that even the best sales letters rarely convert at more than 1-2% even with targeted traffic.

Despite that you will see some affiliates that can generate 3, 4 or even 5 times that average conversion because of the relationship that they have built with their subscribers. The follow up series allows you to do just that - build the relationship with your subscribers.

You can see how powerful this can be.

Now the disadvantage of this is the part they skip on all of the hyped up sales letters. It takes effort or that bad 4 letter word - WORK. It does require you to either have some skills or the cash to outsource processes.

You will need hosting and the ability to create web pages. If terms like HTML, FTP and PHP make your eyes glaze over you are in for a learning curve.

You will need an autoresponder to automate the follow up for you. You will need to understand how to use that system.

None of these are quite like rocket science and most people can pick them up easily. It can be daunting to get it started. Once started you need to test and tweak the system until you get it operating properly.
Do it once then you need to rinse and repeat the process.

Create these systems and you will have the proverbial big red easy button. Just send traffic and collect the cash.

To cut your effort and learning curve check out the premade affiliate systems including the ethical bribe and follow up series ready for you to just send traffic at The Clickbank Pirate .