Statistics say that more than 100,000 people go online each month looking for a way to earn money working from home. Affiliate programs have long been the answer for most opportunity seekers. But why is that?

Affiliate programs come in many shapes and sizes. If you become an affiliate, you will basically get a website and marketing materials to advertise the companies products or services. For every sale or lead you produce for the company from your direct advertising efforts, you are awarded a commission or a portion of the profits.

There are many different payment structures in the world of affiliate marketing. So instead of boring you with all the details, I’ll give you a basic rundown of the 2 that are most important.

First, if you join and affiliate with a program that offers you residual income, good for you! This type of commission payment plan can be extremely profitable for you. Residual income commission basically means you advertise once and make a sale. There is a monthly payment that your client makes to be in that program or use that service. You as an affiliate will receive a part of that monthly payment as long as the client uses that service.

Let’s look at an example of how profitable it can be for you as an affiliate.

Let’s say the affiliate program pays you a commission of $10 per affiliate on residual income, that you sign up or bring into the program. Now, let’s say you’ve been advertising consistently for 3 months and have achieved 100 affiliate signups.

100 x $10 per month = You get $1,000 every month in residual income! Not bad!

Now let’s say you’re really mastering your craft as an affiliate marketer and over 2 years, you used leads and email campaigns to sign up 900 more affiliates to the affiliate program!

900 + 100 = (1000 affiliates x $10 per month) = You’ll get paid $10,000 every month, just working from home! Awesome! This figure is completely achievable if you get good at affiliate marketing and many affiliates are earning more than you are reading this article.

Residual income is “King”. Even after you have sponsored these 1000 affiliates, if you decided to stop marketing, you would still get paid this amount each month!

Now that we’ve reviewed residual income, let’s take a look at the one-time sale!

Many affiliate programs use this type of commission structure. This type of commission structure can also be extremely profitable. A good example of this type of affiliate program would be the Click Bank affiliate program.

Ok, so you just sold an internet marketing book, which sells for $77. You will receive a percentage of the sale. Let’s say 50% to make it easy. You get $38.50 per sale. Your earnings can add up quickly if your product is popular or in demand! This type of affiliate marketing gives you many more items to sell as an affiliate. Basically, you could take different products, from many different affiliate programs, and sell them all from one affiliate site. I use this technique myself on some of my affiliate sites and I like the variety it offers my visitors.

Let’s say this month you made 100 sales of this “Hot Niche book”.

100 x $38.50 per book = $3,850 profit from your sales in one month!

Now, if you take into account that you will be making sales of other products on that same page, you can start to see how profitable affiliate programs that use the one-time commission can be.

The last thing I wanted to tell you about affiliate programs is this. Many affiliate programs offer you a downline. It may be staggered or it may be in the form of a matrix. Typically, residual income programs will offer you this. Let’s say you register Joe under you as an affiliate. So Joe goes out and registers 4 more affiliates under him. Now those 4 affiliates register 4 more affiliates.

You know that you will also be paid a percentage of your sales. It’s like having your own army of affiliates selling and making money for you, without you having to lift a finger. Now, I gave you a very small estimate as an example of how your business will grow. Personally, I have some affiliates who have brought hundreds of people to my downlines without help. So you can see why affiliate programs can be extremely profitable for you.

If you’ve been “sitting on the fence” about joining an affiliate program. You should put those worries aside and join in! You can earn enough money to leave the daily routine behind and start enjoying life again.a