Ah yes, affiliate marketing. Don't you just love it? My apologies to Daddy Dewdrop. The merchants with their get rich quick products or their cures for whatever ails you. Giving them away at rock bottom prices. The insane guarantees and bonuses. It's all an affiliate marketers dream. Or is it? In some cases, affiliate marketing can be a real nightmare because of all the garbage out there. How do you know what's good to sell and what's going to be a waste of time. Well, in this article, I'm going to give you a few guidelines to help you weed out the garbage. First thing you want to do is research the merchant who came out with the product. See what other products they've come out with. Find any reviews of them that you can. Naturally look for as many reviews of the current product as well. If you find a ton of negative reviews, it might be a subtle warning that you don't want to promote this product. As an affiliate marketer, your reputation is just as much at risk. If you promote too many products that get bad reviews, your credibility can go down the tubes real fast. Next thing you want to do is check out the sales page to see if there are any leaks. What do I mean by leaks? Well, some merchants have more than one payment link on a sales page. The one link will go to the affiliate sale but the other link will go to a non affiliate sale. This is usually done for people who don't have the option of paying through the affiliate option or if they're ordering a physical product. The way to test to see if you're going to get credit is to walk through the process just before actually paying and check to see that your affiliate ID comes up. If it doesn't, you probably want to stay away from this product. Finally, you want to check the guarantee and return policy of the product. With some payment processors you are forced to use a no questions asked refund policy. In some niches, such as the make money online niche, this is an invitation to serial refunders. You probably want to stay away from these products. If you follow these three simple tips, you'll give yourself the best chance of selling a product that is of quality and won't result in a lot of lost sales. To YOUR Success, Steven Wagenheim Tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at: http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.