By Terry Dean

Top affiliate marketing experts tell you that only 1 out of 100 affiliates ever really do anything with the business. Yet, they tell everyone how much money they can make as an affiliate! Do you see a problem here?

Having a 1% chance of success is not the kind of business I want to start. That's even worse than the average retail business...No thanks. It's a good thing you don't have to accept those odds.

Those odds are for the average "Joe." Let me tell you how the average Joe markets the affiliate program...including their thought process.

They see an affiliate program paying 50% commission and their mind jumps to attention. They can make $50 off every $100 sale...They don't have to write any ads...and all they have to do is follow the step-by-step system already laid out for them.

In other words, they don't even have to think either! They jump at the chance and sign up for Free.

They get the instructions emailed to them from the affiliate manager. The instructions tell them to take this 5 line ad and place it in ezines. So they say, "OK, I can afford $40 for an ad." They place the ad and one sale occurs. Good. They at least made a $10 profit.

They say, "Hmmm, maybe that ezine wasn't that good of one." So they place two more ads for $75 and $100. One of these ads does well and makes 2 sales. They earned a $25 profit (paying $75 for the ad). The second ad only made one sale. They lost $50 on this one (since they paid $100 for the ad). They have now made 4 sales, and have lost a total $15.

They give up on this affiliate program in frustration. They join another affiliate program hoping this one will be answer. Maybe that last one just didn't sell good enough. This new affiliate program tells you to place "Pay-Per-Click" search engine advertising.

He says, "Yes, that's the answer. They had me placing the wrong advertising!"

Average "Joe" now spends all day coming up with keywords. He finds out that there aren't many 1 penny opportunities out there anymore...and that you have to spend 10 cents, 20 cents, or more for most of the keywords. So he ends up paying $100 the first month for clickthroughs and makes 3 sales.

This affiliate program pays the same commission so this adds up to $50 in profit. The same amount of clickthroughs occur the next month, but only 2 sales occur. So, average Joe just breaks even this month.

So average Joe gives up on this affiliate program and joins a new one. This time average "Joe" says, "I know the secret now. I have to only use Free advertising." So Joe spends 10 hours writing his first article and sends it out to ezines.

One of them runs the article and 1 sale occurs. So average "Joe" earns $50. The only problem is that this breaks down to only $5 an hour once you count the amount of time spent to produce this sale. Average "Joe" could have done a lot better working overtime at their job!

So average "Joe" says forget it to the whole idea...

Let's take a look at what happened. Sometimes money would be made. Other times money was lost. Do you notice who makes a profit no matter what happens...and never has to risk a penny? That's right. The affiliate manager makes money no matter what!

The average affiliate may earn or lose money. The affiliate manager only pays them when they generate a profit. So the affiliate manager wins on the deal whether the advertising system they write up for their affiliates works well or not.

The deck is stacked against the average affiliate. They only had a 1% chance of playing this game and winning.

Let's change the odds.

The big myth of online affiliate programs is that someone will "hand" you a good income. All you have to do is sign up for Free, and it's like money in the bank. Most people realize this, but the affiliate program managers make it sound so easy sometimes.

The key to becoming a successful affiliate is to stack the deck in your favor. This will shock some people, but I'll say it anyway.

The best way to succeed in an affiliate program is NOT to lead people to the product site. The best way isn't to build a mini-site that leads into the product site either. Both of those methods promote the affiliate manager...and leave you out of the profit loop.

The best way to make money in affiliate programs is to build an opt-in email list and then promote one affiliate product after another to your list. The purpose of your web site is to build a list. If you're doing anything else with it, then you're missing out.

Focus on building your list...and then selling the products you affiliate with. Then, you become the one in control. It's your list. If you want to promote Suzy's product, then you do it. If Suzy doesn't pay you well enough, then you can promote someone else's product. You still OWN the list.

You can change income streams, but you own the RIVER.