Today’s post is on finding and promoting affiliate products.

Affiliate products in this instance are used to test the commercial value of the micro-niche you’re interested in. It tells you whether people in that micro-niche are willing to spend their money.While you may very well end up earning commissions from affiliate products, remember that the end result of the Thirty Day Challenge will be to create your own product.

You are going to have to find suitable affiliate products, write some ad copy to promote the affiliate products and put your ads online. The four main sources of affiliate products are Amazon, Clickbank, Commission Junction and PayDotCom. Some affiliate programs may require you to have a website before you can register.

When gauging affiliate products, there are a couple of factors to take into consideration; 1) Availability – if no affiliate products exist, you should probably explore another micro-niche. 2) Prices – give you an idea of how much people in this niche are willing to spend. 3) Commissions – help you find out how much you could potentially get paid  and also the most profitable affiliate products to promote. 4) Popularity – finding out which products are the most popular. 5) Recurring – such as subscriptions – who wouldn’t love on-going commissions?

Contrary to what you may have heard, competition in  niche is actually a good thing…it shows that people in that niche are actually buying. Lack of competition could potentially mean that there is no market. The fact that there are plenty of affiliate products being offered for that niche is a good indicator of the fact that people are buying.

Another way to test the commercial viability of a niche is the presence of Google Adwords (i.e. people are paying to advertise). When you look at the Adwords, you also get a feel as to the kind of products that are on sale in that niche.