When a newbie begins an online business, the temptation can be high to join most any affiliate program they see in the hopes of making extra money. Given the amount of products and services that newbie get presented with, and since newbie have a burning desire to make money fast, it is easy to see how the online newbie can get lured into joining a lot of affiliate programs without knowing if they should join them or not.

For the newbie, the danger in joining lots of affiliate programs is multi-faceted. Joining affiliate programs takes time, time the newbie could be using defining their USP, learning about getting targeted traffic, or learning other Internet marketing skills that will actually generate revenue for them. In addition, the newbie who joins lots of affiliate programs in the hopes of making instant profits, is at risk of being disappointed when they don't make money by joining the latest affiliate program and that leads to yet further "unproductivity" and poor use of time.

So, what steps do newbie take to identify the best affiliate program(s) that matches their USP?

1) Define how the affiliate program's offering complements your USP.

You should be able to clearly map out what the affiliate program's offering (product or service) will be useful to patrons or visitors of your web site, list or customer base.

2) Make sure that you fully review the product offered by the affiliate program, use it, and make your own assessment of it.

Don't promote a product from any affiliate program unless you own the product yourself and love it. If you own and love the product that you are promoting, you will be able to sell it more effectively because your energy and excitement level will show through in the deliver of your message to would be customer.

3) Make certain that the web site that sells the affiliate program is set up correctly to sell the product, and sell it well.

The web site that sells the product of the affiliate program should be professional in its layout, design, sales copy, and delivery of the product itself. The web site should have a mechanism to capture the names and emails of the visitors. The web site should also have a strong auto responder series in place to follow up with and sell the visitors of that site on the product.

4) Check to see if the affiliate program should be tracked with cookies so that the referring web site will get credit for each affiliate sale, even the sales that come as a result of the auto responder series.

If the affiliate program doesn't use cookies to track referrals, do not sign up.

5) Pay Per Click Ads

Pay Per Click Ads are a very popular way of promoting affiliate programs. You bid on a keyword, use your text ad and pay the amount you have bid on when someone clicks on your ads. Overture is the most popular, but also one of the most expensive. Use your search engine to do a search to find a ppc that fits your budget.

6) Article Writing

Writing articles is a good way of advertising your affiliate programs for free. Write an article about something relevant to your business opportunity, and place your affiliate website url in the resource box at the end of your article. If the reader has enjoyed your article they may click on your link and you have a potential customer.

7) E-Zine Advertising

E-zine advertising is also a very good way of advertising your affiliate programs. Internet marketers with huge list will sell you space in their e-zine for you to advertise. Prices vary depending on the number of people subscribed to each person's list. You can normally find marketers willing to sell you advertising space in ezine directories.