eBay Affiliate Program - How you can make some dough from the world's largest marketplace!

Perhaps you've heard of 'affiliate marketing'. If you haven't (or even if you have) I'm going to give you a brief explanation. Basically you sign up for an affiliate program with any number of suppliers. Then you're assigned a unique tracking code. Then you refer online traffic to those suppliers using a link with that tracking code embedded in it, and the supplier pays you a commission for either the referral or a sale, whatever is outlined in their program.

It's a simple concept. It's basically 'word of mouth' advertising that you get paid for. Sounds good right? Of course it does :o) . There are affiliate programs for just about anything and everything.

Let's say you have an adidas website (like me). You're already getting traffic there. You may or may not 'sell' anything on your site, but you can still make some money. You do a search on the internet for 'idiots Affiliate Program' . On Google, it would return this page . As you can see, right away there are plenty of programs.

The first one is a program with a company called Soccer.com . Their program is described as "If you love soccer, have your own Web site, and would like to earn some extra cash, then our affiliate network is for you. Simply link your Web site to the center of the soccer universe and become a SOCCER.COM affiliate. By joining The SOCCER.COM Affiliate Network, you can open your very own online soccer shop and make money by providing Eurosport's best selection of high quality, hard to find soccer equipment on your own Web site."

They offer:

• You'll earn 7.5% commission on all sales originating from your site!
• Receive monthly commission checks for all commissions totaling over $25.
• Team-up with The Fabled Soccer Traders at Eurosport, the name that people have known and trusted since 1984!
• Take advantage of the support, encouragement, and expertise of your friends on the SOCCER.COM Affiliate Team!

Now I'm not trying to tell you to sign up for this program, and I get nothing if you do. It's just an example. So you put a small link on your Adidas site. Maybe something simple, like an image of a soccer ball with some simple text under it that says "Adidas Soccer Equipment". The link takes them to that Soccer.com site. If they buy something, you get paid. I know you just dollar signs right?

Now, my Blog is about eBay, so you may be asking yourself "what's he rambling on about this for?". Well eBay has an affiliate program too....YES, they do. That means you can cash in on the world's largest online marketplace without ever selling anything of your own.

eBay and many other retailers and suppliers don't want to get too mixed up in the business of paying affiliates and all that. So they utilize a third party company that offers marketers (like you and me) a chance to get hooked up with these great companies. eBay uses a company called Commission Junction . CJ offers programs with literally thousands of companies including CompUSA, eBay, Citi Bank, Yahoo, Buy.com, Home Depot, REI, Tommy Hilfiger, USA Today, Quicken Loans, Expedia, Zappos.com and many, many more.

Ok, so you get signed up with CJ (it's free), then you tell them you want to refer business to eBay. They give you a code to use for referrals. There are over 900 links they offer just for eBay so you can tailor it to wherever you think you might want to put the link. They even have links for eBay Canada (ebay.ca) and eBay Europe (ebay.uk) and many other countries.

Ok, let's check out the links.

First a text link: ebaystores.com

This one goes to the eBay stores section. If someone signs up for a store within 30 days of following this link, I get paid $30.00. Not bad eh? I want you to mouse over it for a second, and notice the code at the end. This is my referral code. This is how they track that I sent the person to eBay. Now when I create the link I can encrypt the code also so it looks like this:

Encrypted code text link: ebaystores.com

Cool huh? Another thing I did was if you click the first text link, you'll see it takes you out of the blog to the landing page. But, the second link I've elected to have it open a new page (my personal preference since I don't want my site visitor to forget where they started).

I think you get the idea. I'll put a few of the other eBay links so you can see what's available.

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Alright, that's probably enough, you get the idea. You can get the eBay Affiliate Program detail HERE. They have all kinds of tips, tools and help to get you started and help you be successful. They'll outline the payment details and anything else you could want to know.

Later I'll go into some more ways to maximize affiliate income using some other tools and other sites. Good luck!