If you'd like to make money online, one of the easiest ways to do so is with affiliate marketing companies. While affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make profits online, that can seem overwhelming, especially for a beginner. Even though it offers all the advantages of e-commerce, with none of the drawbacks of running a traditional store, or selling your own goods online, people new to affiliate marketing sometimes feel that there's a ton of information to digest and it's hard to get started.

Even after they understand the concepts and feel ready to begin, the thought of searching through thousands of affiliate programs to find the ones they want to promote can seem daunting.

But affiliate marketing companies make this easy for you. They're companies in which hundreds of merchants who offer affiliate programs are gathered together in one place. Once you sign up with the company, you can promote any of the products of any of the companies in that network.

You may have to fill out agreements with each individual company you want to promote, but there's a central place to get your affiliate links, and the entire process is streamlined and uniform. Once you start the process to become an affiliate marketer for one company, you know that each one will be similar. This shortens the learning curve and lets you get going very quickly.

Affiliate marketing companies make it easy to find the type of merchant you're looking for. Once you sign up with them, you can search for certain types of products or services, and find the list of those types of merchants associated with that company. Then you can review the terms of each one's agreement, like whether you get paid per click, lead, or sale, and how much your commission will be, before making decisions on which product or products to promote.

Another advantage of affiliate marketing companies is that the technical work of tracking which of your links are clicked on most often and how many results in sales are monitored by the company. Your records are online where you can easily see how much you're earning with each individual affiliate account, and all of your click-through statistics, all in one place.

You don't have to go to each merchant's account for that information and keep track of everything yourself. Payment is also through the affiliate marketing companies, instead of the individual merchants, so you'll be paid one time for all of your efforts, making bookkeeping more simple.

These companies also typically offer ready-made banners and links to give the new affiliate marketer a starting place. And great information about how to grow your affiliate business, draw customers and make more profits are readily available for you. Anyone with Internet access can get started this way and start making money. So if you're interested in affiliate marketing but need a little help getting started, look into one or several of the online affiliate marketing companies.