“Why do only a few affiliates strike gold while others scamper for pennies?” Are most of them satisfied with the amount they earn? Earning $300 to $500 a month is Good, but making 10 to 20 times more… is Great. Who would want to let off such a golden opportunity. Before we start, lets take a look at the bitter truth of affiliate marketing: Not everyone can make millions in affiliate marketing.
The market is already too crowded & the customer base needs to increase manifolds to achieve this. There is no easy money ! One cannot expect money to fall from trees in affiliate marketing. There are no snap your fingers technique and even if they existed no one would reveal such a golden goose to the public.
The best affiliate program can only be found by trial and error research. What works for one need not necessarily work for another. Choosing a program without researching will not yield good results.
Now let us look at the 3 Golden Keys which shall help you increase your earning potential.

Key One: Google & Yahoo Search Marketing
There are millions of web pages on the web today. It is not possible for everyone to get free traffic. Optimizing a website by creating wonderful content will take a lot of efforts and needs patience. But in conjunction with Google and Yahoo Search Marketing, it becomes a spearhead which guides your website to the top positions in a search engine. If one needs to succeed with Yahoo they need to conquer Google first. These search engines are the main driving force of traffic on the internet. First test your landing pages with pay per click search engines. If a particular method clicks you can scale and invest more into it. However competing with top keywords is not advisable. Start with a low competitive keyword.

Key Two: Mailing Lists
Mailing list helps target people with ease. One can have a mailing list by providing subscription forms on the website or even by starting a coregistration campaign. The last resort is to purchase mail lists.
Key Three: Affiliate Programs
Affiliate Programs are Successful Introduce your own unique offer on the web. If your website is generating revenue through sales then there is no harm in paying affiliates for generating leads or sales. This is perhaps the most overlooked method. Within a short span you would see thousands of sites promoting your product.
So one does have to pay for traffic in one way or the other. Advertising smartly is important. Always try and test new methods. If a particular method works well repeat it on a larger scale. However, never plunge the entire money into a single method. Being creative while advertising always helps.