There are no industry standards for training and certification in affiliate marketing.
Affiliates and affiliate manager have to use other existing resources to learn the intricate details of this young industry. The best way to learn is by experience. No matter what sources you use to get some of the basics, nothing will replace personal hands on experience.
There are various options to learn the basics and some include a certification, but there is no such thing as an industry wide acknowledged certification program. The certification you get from some of the programs might help, but they might do not.
Types of Resources
Seminars and certifications that are acknowledged by a large number of people in the affiliate industry are for example Andy Rodriguez's Affiliate Manager Certification Seminar and Shawn Collins Affiliate Manager Boot Camp for affiliate managers and The Affiliate Classroom for affiliates. Certifications acquired there are as close to an industry certification as you can get today. Pepperjam's "Super Affiliate Certification" program is another effort to create a somewhat industry standard for certifying proven and successful affiliates.
Other good sources are blogs, online forums, podcasts, books, industry magazines and industry events, such as conferences and expos. Be careful with those sources though. There are good and bad sources out there trying to sell you "silver bullets" and "get rich quick" schemes. If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.
I compiled a list of numerous sources for education about affiliate marketing and made it available on this page or reference to. You should not trust my word alone, unless you know my reputation, and me or heard about the recommended sources already elsewhere. Do some diligence yourself to avoid spending money on something that is garbage and does not help your goal to learn the affiliate marketing business at all.
What are the cost?
You will be surprised to learn that a lot of these resources are available for free or very little cost. The exception are real life events and seminars and some of the bigger self learning kits who include a lot of material in print, audio and video.
Your biggest investment will be time, a lot of time. This is true for both sides of the business, for managing affiliates as well as being an affiliate yourself. If you are not willing to invest the time necessary, don't even start, because you would be wasting your time. Seriously! I am not trying to scare you, but tell you how it is. You can be very successful, even though only few will be able to become millionaires in this business.
Special Notes to Newbie Affilates
There are no "big secrets" to be found in any of the provided resources. Don't be fooled by people who try to make you believe otherwise. Affiliate marketing means work and a lot of experimenting to figure out what works for you in regards of generating income and what does not. Don't let yourself down, because of failures. All successful affiliate marketers I know did tons of mistakes before they "made it". The provided material helps you to avoid some of those mistakes and also offers tips how to approach certain things that are relevant.
None of them will offer you a fool proof system, which you just have to follow by the letter to earn riches in a short amount of time. They don't offer any system, because there is none.
What is Affiliate Marketing? How does affiliate marketing work?
See my updated and significantly extended article titled "Affiliate Marketing 101". I also recommend some additional great affiliate marketing 101 articles and resources further down below, which you will probably find very helpful.
Before you get started, check my Affiliate Marketing Beginners Checklist that will help you to realize what you will get yourself into with affiliate marketing and determine if you are ready for it.
This page provides a list of resources for new affiliate managers and affiliates as well. Some of the resources are targeting one or the other, but there are also several others that are interesting for both sides of the business, affiliates and affiliate managers alike.
First get some basic "gear" before we jump right into the topic affiliate marketing.
| Sign up for my affiliate and internet marketing news (RSS feed). |  |
Read the News online, use your RSS news reader or signup with your Email and get the news sent to your inbox daily. Stay on top of what is moving the affiliate marketing space. When you can read about it in the mainstream press, then it is already old news for this dynamic and daily changing industry.
The news feed I am providing is an aggregation of a number of internet and affiliate marketing news sources, mainly blogs. You can find more blogs and news sites at the home pages of each of my main top sections of the site: Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing.
I maintain an events calendar with big and small industry events. Check it out online or subscribe to the public internet marketing events calendar, which is powered by Google Calendar. You can subscribe via Google Calendar directly, if you have an account or to a number of different XML feeds, including iCAL and RSS feed. You also have the option to subscribe via email.
You can find all subscription options at the events calendar page.
37 min Video (WMV Format) - High Speed - Low Speed (Instructions)
High Performance Affiliate Marketing by Jeremy Palmer from QuitYourDayJob.com (NOW FREE!)
The Practical Guide to Creating and Managing a Profitable Affiliate Program by Neil Durrant (Nettraction)Affiliate Marketing 101 - Free eBook written by Wayne and Kim L.T.PorterThe Basics of Affiliate Marketing by Deborah "Loxly" CarneyThere are also a large number of free podcasts and videos available to the various subjects of internet and affiliate marketing, including search engine optimization, search engine marketing and PPC and topics like web analytics, social media, email marketing and more.
You can find a lot of these type of resources at my marketing videos and affiliate marketing podcasts pages.
 I would like to highlight the educational session video recordings from the Affiliate Summit conference and expo, which are now accessible for free, even to non-attendes of the events. Only the subscription to the Real Deal Affiliate Summit email newsletter is required in order to get the access URL and username and password to be able to get to the videos. If you already got the username and password click here to acccess the videos. Here is a list of all the available videos that were published until April 2008.
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High Performance Affiliate Marketing by Jeremy Palmer Learn from somebody who started with nothing and now makes over one million per year. No scam, no easy ride, but a lot of hard work. Jeremy is still an active affiliate, CJ Performer and Horizon Award winner. Hands on tips for Newbies. Learn what to do and what not (more important). Get it now FOR FREE!  |
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The Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner Learn the basics from somebody who actually did it herself and can write from her own experiences. No BS, the real deal. Rosalind Gardner is a super affiliate herself, a writer for Revenue Magazine, the performance industry's standard magazine and speaker at affiliate marketing conferences to share her experience with others.  |
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Street Smart Internet Marketing by Justin Michie Tips, tools, tactics & techniques to market your product, service, business or ideas online. Provides a good overview over the different aspects of internet marketing. Good for newbie's, but nothing for veterans. |
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Affiliate Marketers Handbook by James Martell The respected marketer and super affiliate James Martel shares his experience and knowledge about how to get started as entrepreneur in affiliate marketing. His book focuses people who just started out in this industry.  |
Website Services Magazine
Another one is Website Services Magazine, the free internet marketing and webmaster print magazine. It requires registration because they need your address to send you the printed magazine. They have electronic versions of the current and past issues available online too.
Revenue Magazine
You can apply for a Free Subscription to Revenue Magazine. You will get it for free if you qualify. A paid subscription is also available and I recommend to get one if you do not qualify for the free subscription for any reason. Revenue Magazine started to make their content available online. So you can get to the content for free, regardless if you qualify for the free subscription and can't afford the subscription fee for the print version. Here is the content of the current issue of Revenue Magazine for example.
Whitepapers
Building a publisher site for Pay-Out and performance - a free whitepaper available for download by the e-tailing group and sponsored by Performics, Inc., the affiliate network and DoubleClick company.
Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Affiliates (transcript) a panel session moderated by Candice Nobles at Affiliate Summit 2006 East. You can download the powerpoint slides for the panel by Candice Nobles and also purchase the audio recording.
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Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants by Shawn Collins Book or eBook  |
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Affiliate Manager Handbook by Hellen Porter (UK) Available via Lulu, 161 pages, 9" x 7", for about $155 (depending on exchange rate to british pounds.
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A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing written by Evgenii "Geno" Prussakov. |
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Revenue Magazine for Internet Marketers (Subscription) Free, if you qualify. Print and/or Electronic  |
My site focus is primarily on internet marketers from or are doing business in the United States and Canada, but I do add resources for other regions too, if I come across them. I have okay coverage for the United Kingdom for example, but I suggest you seek out sites that are equivalent to mine, with focus on the region you are living in and/or do business at.
Affiliatemarketingseminars.co.uk - Affiliate marketing boot camps in the United Kingdom. Camps for affiliates and affiliate managers as well. The boot camps are usually three days in length. Speakers include representatives from U.K. affiliate networks, successful affiliate marketers and program managers.There is a number of other resources that go beyond basic affiliate marketing, but are important for affiliate marketers. Affiliates engage in all sorts of internet marketing techniques. Even if you are already having traffic and a loyal customer base, should you check out possible additional internet marketing avenues to leverage your existing customer base and ways to gain even more customers.
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A free gift to you, from me, Carsten. Future of Communications from Affiliate Manager to Affiliate - my tradeshow panel presentation presented at eComXpo virtual internet marketing tradeshow and expo on October 24, 2006. Download the Microsoft Powerpoint slides, with or without audio and access additional resources related to my presentation. The presentation is also available at the eComXpo university. |
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