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I can't believe it! I open up my mail today, and what do I receive? A statement from one of my affiliates saying that I've earned a pretty good amount of money for the last quarter. Wow! How'd that happen? Since my web site is only a couple of months old, I couldn't believe that I'd already earned that much from this affiliate. Now why am I surprised? Don't I tell all of my visitors and readers to find out on a consistent basis how they are doing? Of course I do. But guess what? I got caught up in something that I bet each and every one of you gets caught up in!

I work hard on my web site. In fact, I work on it almost daily. And I work hard on my weekly e-zine. But then I sit back and think, Hmmmm is anyone really visiting my web site?" And that's all I do. I don't think to track too much. This is really not a smart way to handle your business. Since I started I-MarketingZONE I have learned a lot about marketing. I have to. I have to keep up with all the current trends in Internet marketing and web site promotion. That's what my visitors expect me to do. And I use most of the things that I learn. But I've forgotten the most important elements tracking and testing.

It's very important to keep track of which affiliates are producing an income for you. And I don't mean by waiting for a quarterly statement like I did. By then you've spent a lot of time and money on something that may not be working. What you need to do first is get a notebook or use a spreadsheet program. List any affiliates that you have signed up for. Write down your username and password for future information. Write down the link that you need to visit to check your stats. Every time you go to check your stats, write down what kind of activity you are doing. If it's working, then keep it up. If it's not working, you may want to either try a different approach to promoting it, or you may want to drop that affiliate program.

Affiliate surprise can be fun when you get a notice like I did today, but if you get a notice where you are producing nothing, then you've probably wasted 3 months on something that you could have been doing different.

About The Author

Marci Perrine is the owner of Marci's Creations Online, a web site development company, and I-MarketingZONE, an Internet marketing web site.

Visit http://www.marciscreations.com for more information on how Marci can help you build your web site.

Visit http://www.i-marketingzone.com for solid solutions on how to market and make money with your web site, and subscribe to her weekly ezine today at http://www.i-marketingzone.com/subscribe6.htm