As we have already seen today, affiliate marketing is a relatively trouble free way for bloggers and other website owners to earn money. In fact, these days, even social media sites can become lucrative platforms for affiliate marketing campaigns.

Because affiliate marketing does not require affiliates to offer their own products or services for purchase, but only to place promotions on their sites for other merchants’ products, it frees affiliates from many of the responsibilities and complications of traditional sales models.

Affiliate programs typically work by having the merchant handle all the logistics involved in selling products or services, processing customer orders and payments, and shipping merchandise all while the affiliate sits back and collects a commission for each agreed-upon action completed by the visitors the affiliate sends to the merchant’s website via an affiliate link. As long as the affiliate has done her homework and chosen a trustworthy affiliate program, she needn’t worry about non-payment.

Affiliate networks administer programs for individual merchants, handling all the work involved, while generally providing tracking and reporting capabilities to their affiliates to help them keep tabs on their revenues and determine which products or services are producing the best returns. These tools can be helpful to an affiliate in fine-tuning the line of products she decides to promote on her site and, ideally, increasing revenues as a result.

However, all affiliate programs are not created equal. Which are the most popular programs available today?

1. Amazon Associate- Amazon is the largest marketplace for online shopping and if you want to make money by selling or promoting products, Amazon affiliate program can help you to make thousands of dollars per month. Amazon pays very high commission on each sale and you don't need to work hard to sell any kind of Amazon product because people love to buy Amazon products. You can find every kind of product related to electronic, books, software, clothes etc on Amazon. Payments are made via Check and bank transfer.
2. Clickbank - Clickbank is one of the biggest affiliate networks where you can find more than ten thousand merchants and 100000 affiliates. Clickbanks has thousands of affiliate programs and if you promote them, you can earn more than thousand dollars per month by working just 2-3 hours per day.
3. Commission Junction - CJ ( Commission Junction ) is another great affiliate network where you can find thousands of targeted products. CJ offers pay per lead and pay per sale affiliate programs to web publishers. Payments are made via check and direct bank transfer. Minimum payout of CJ is $50.
4. Neverblue- One of the best affiliate networks that has a large network of high paying advertisers. You can find here thousands of pay per lead affiliate programs which can be promoted on your blog, website or social networks. Very useful affiliate network where you can find free sponsored products such as free software or toolbars, applications , free trail sing up offers and more.
5. Shareasale- Shareasale is one of the most popular ad networks which has more than 3000 advertisers. You can find every kind of program. Shareasale offers pay per sale, pay per lead and pay per click affiliate program that can help site owners monetizing their website with highly targeted advertisers. Payments are made via Check and direct bank transfer.
6. Linkshare- Linkshare has over than thousand top merchants that pays very high commission. You can find here CPL and CPS products. You can also join here Apple's iTunes affiliate program to sell iPhone , iPad and Mac apps. Payments are made via Check and direct deposit. Minimum payout is only $1.
7. Cpalead - Leading affiliate network where publishers can find hundreds of pay per lead products. Website owners can offer free toolbar, ebook , software etc by using this affiliate network.
8. Avangate - Great affiliate network where you can find sponsored software, application , antivirus and other kinds of digital products. If you have a website based on technology, you can monetize your website by using affiliated software and applications of this affiliate network.
9. Clickbooth- Clickbooth is one of the best places to find highly targeted affiliate programs. You can find here hundreds of pay per lead programs to monetize your blog or website. Clickbooth offers two different services for website owners which are - affiliate network and cpc ad network.
10. Viglink- If you have a blog or website and you love to write reviews on software, ebay products, amazon products , gadget etc, you can earn thousands of dollars by using Viglink. Viglink monetizes your simple links into affiliate links. There is no minimum payout and payment can be received via PayPal.