Get set to have all of your ideas about Affiliate Programs turned upside down. While you may be hesitant at first, rest assured, once you put this new knowledge to use your Online business will flourish like never before.

Here is the way you MUST use Affiliate programs.

The main purpose of your Affiliate program is NOT to make money. The main purpose of your Affiliate program is to add names to your opt-in list.

Read the quote again. Quite a shocker isnt it? Let me explain why this statement is so true.

Think about how Affiliate programs work. You have been taught to place ads so people will click on the link which takes them directly to the product website. The net result is that you spend your time and money to generate traffic for your Affiliate program and you make some money on a one time sale. End of your investment and end of your association with that person.

Lets analyze this a bit further because when we do you will see the wisdom in my quote.

The people that responded to your ad are interested in the product you advertised. Ok, that is pretty obvious. But they have given you something else when you think about it. They have given you a clue about the type of product they are interested in by clicking on the link in your ad.

You now possess something of great value - you know something about their interests. Marketing people love to get this type of info. There is one slight problem. Under the current way you are doing business you will never learn who they are or see them again. Once they click on your Affiliate link, they are whisked off through Cyberspace to the Affiliate program website.

Lets now look at a new Affiliate system designed to maximize the benefits to your Online business.

Does the Affiliate program you are interested in offer a free info product such as a course, report or e-book as advertising tools? If so, awesome. If not, you will need to create your own info product in order to use this strategy. Here is how you will use these tools.

Before you place any ads you will set up an Autoresponder with the free info product and some follow-up messages. The follow-up messages will offer some additional information all geared to help sell the Affiliate program product and develop a relationship with the subscriber.

After your Autoresponder sequence is set up, instead of advertising the Affiliate product you will advertise the free info product. In order for the reader to get the free info product they must join your Autoresponder list where they will leave their name and e-mail address.

Do you understand what just happened? Instead of maybe making a sale for an Affiliate program product, you now have the name of a person not only interested in the Affiliate program product but possibly related products! You now have names you can introduce other products to in the future at no additional cost because you have already spent the money to identify these potential customers.

This is truly a powerful paradigm shift that very few people know about.

Always, always remember the number 1 rule of Internet business: The money is in the list!!! The list empowers you by providing a long term source of revenue! Look at the money you make from the Affiliate program is an added benefit.

Once you use this technique with one Affiliate program you can use it with other programs to build lists with different interests to create multiple streams of income.