If you are like any marketer on the internet, you need to sell your product and the more you sell the better off you are. Wouldn't be wonderful if you could hire salespeople to sell your product without having to pay anything unless a sale is made. Affiliate Programs are how you make this happen.

If this is what you want to do, there are many solutions some are poor but some are a dream to work. I was amazed when I started to do research on the various products out there. Since I am a programmer by trade I thought that creating it myself would be best. What a mistake! I thought, it can't be all that hard. After spending many hours and coming up with only a small portion of the abilities that the big guys have, I gave up and stared to really look for a good program.

When looking for a good affiliate program, it is best to know exactly what you need in a program. The following is a list of the most important things to look for.

• Customizable affiliate cookie expiration time. When an affiliate refers a customer to you and that person does not buy right now, the affiliate will still receive credit for the sale even a year or 2 later. Most affiliates want a long period of time. A cookie is just a piece of data the is stored on the customers machine that will allow the web site to recognize who referred the customer.
• An autoresponder for the affiliates. This allows you to create a set of emails the will be delivered to the affiliate at a prescribed time. This allows you to put your basic communications with your affiliates on autopilot.
• A payout system that is at least partially automated. This allows you to quickly dump out the list of affiliates and amount to be paid. Some affiliate systems are integrated into payout systems like paypal. This will allow you to quickly pay the vast majority of the affiliates without having to write a check.

If you choose a good program it can boost your sales without adding much of your time. On the other hand, if you choose poorly then you will have a nightmare on your hands that will eat up your time quickly.

There are several solutions that can help you with your affiliate tracking. Each solution has it's own benefits and drawbacks.

• AssocTRAC - built by Cory Rudal's group, Internet Marketing Strategies.
• Quick Pay Pro - Newer, full featured Affiliate Tracking.

Other options that you might consider are things like ClickBank. This service fully hosts the products and does a great job, but it does eat a lot of money. For the money you pay them you can get more affiliates quicker because they have a plethora of affiliates already and all you have to do is hook into it.

To learn more about these options you should refer to the ebook 33 Days to Internet Success 2004 Edition. A much more detailed description of the options is among its 246 pages

AssocTRAC is a powerful, full-featured affiliate software solution that gives you the exact tools you need to instantly harness the true profit-generating power of an affiliate program. Plus, this powerful software can also be used to uncover rich metrics you won't find in your server logs.

Track -- to the penny -- exactly how much you're earning for each customer referred to you, and know instantly who's delivering the most lucrative traffic. Advertise your business on every corner of the Web -- FREE! With hundreds, even thousands, of affiliates personally recommending your products and services to their subscribers! Never lose money on ineffective advertising -- ever again. You only pay when a sale is made! Track 10,000 affiliates as easily as 1 affiliate with software that manages everything automatically! Skyrocket your sales by 400% or more with third-party recommendations that are far more powerful than you promoting yourself!

If you want to profit from the awesome power of affiliate programs while tracking the precise value of every paid link to your site, then please click here now.