Affiliate marketing is a business model which lets anyone benefit financially by using other people's products on the internet. It's a kind of referral based marketing in which affiliates are rewarded for sending website traffic to various products and services online.

Amazon is probably the best known website for selling products on the internet. They have a program which allows anyone to refer customers to them, for a commission on the sales.

Anyone can become an affiliate marketer. However, the truth is that affiliate marketing is no quick fix. It does work yes, but depending on which direction you choose to set sail with your affiliate marketing business, you can be very disappointed, as I was, many times!

But, if you stick with it, and find a path which both works you and your working style, the rewards can be fantastic. It's taken me a while to get to the point of the light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm definitely sold on affiliate marketing now!

Before I found a community and direction which I could trust in and believe in, I jumped from one strategy to another. Having a mentor helped immensely because not knowing whether what you're doing will work is incredibly difficult.

A lot of what I did when I started simply got me nowhere. I build various websites and my initial tactic was to get my content ranked on Google. This is incredibly difficult, even if your content is unique and offers huge value. You need to keep plugging away and sharing your content. You simply can't rely on Google to rank your content to get it seen.

Then I faced an AdWords account shut down shortly after one of my biggest breakthroughs. This hit me hard and I gave up for a while. What kept me going was the idea of affiliate marketing which I never let go of. My 'why' was that affiliate marketing was a way out of low paid work and grumpy bosses! It also offered a potential income which far outweighed what I could possibly earn by trading my time for money.

Granted, I wasn't earning anything for a number of years. But it was the thought of escaping my difficult circumstances which kept me going.

I eventually discovered subscription products which paid ongoing commissions for previous sales. When I noticed that the subscriptions were coming in, month after month, my eyes really lit up! It wasn't a huge amount at first, just a few $20 commissions which were steadily coming in regardless of the sales I made that month.

Over time this adds up. Combined with high commission affiliate programs which offer up-sells and in-house sales teams who close sales for you, I thought I had finally found the holy grail of affiliate marketing success!