Affiliates are a crucial cog in the wheel that is Internet marketing. Some people are born to create products that meet the needs of people in their niche, but they might not have the time it takes to promote those products. Which is where you come in.

As an affiliate you don’t need to worry about product creation or split testing sales pages, you just need to concentrate on traffic. The more traffic you send to the other person’s sales page the more sales they will make and in turn the more commission you will receive.

Here are the three secrets you need to know to become a successful affiliate promoting other people’s products.

1. Choose the right product

Your first step for success is to select the right affiliate product to promote. There are a wide range of products to choose from but that doesn’t mean that they all will make money for you. Before you even put any time and energy into promoting a programme you need to do some niche research.

Start with a Google search and look for blogs and forums in the niche. Are there lots of people talking about their problems? Make a list of the top ten issues you find in that niche.

Now you need to find a product that solves those issues. You might choose a digital product from a marketplace like Clicbank, or a tangible product from Amazon or from Commission Junction.

Make a list of four or five products that you could promote to solve the problems that you discovered. Then take a close look at the sales pages. Would you buy this product? Is it affordable? Does it really meet the needs of the niche?

When you have found a product that you would like to promote you might also want to check the commission payments and the stats about product sales and conversions.

2. Build a prospects list

It is possible to promote a product by driving potential customers directly to the sales page via your affiliate link. But if you want to be a successful affiliate you should actually capture that potential customer’s information on your own list first.

Think about it; let’s say you decide to promote a pregnancy product. That person not only needs to know about pregnancy and birth, but they’ll also need to buy baby products. Sooner or later they’ll be thinking about teaching their child to read, and then they’ll need school supplies. Don’t focus on the one product sale, think big picture. What else might this person need to buy?

By adding them to your marketing list you can keep contacting that person over time to sell them other products to solve their other problems.

Create a free report that you can use to encourage that person to join your list, and then you can send them onto the sales page. Not only do you have a potential sale in the here and now you also have a future prospect to market to.

3. Start building traffic

Now all that’s left is to start building traffic to your squeeze page. You could try article marketing, using the issues you discovered in the forums as a basis for your articles. Make sure you have a compelling resource box and include a link to your free report.

You could also think about creating a video that talks about a problem you highlighted and tells the viewer where to find the solution. You can include a link to your squeeze page in the video to encourage them to grab your free report and join your prospects list.