My advice is that if you are really going to take an affiliate program seriously
... which you should, then DEFINITELY purchase and USE the product you are going
to promote. I have NEVER promoted anything that I didn't try and liked and found
effective.
In fact, many times, I think the site is awesome and the product SEEMS to
be amazing ... but I then purchase it and notice how crappy it is. Or the company
has just horrible service which means refunds and unsatisfied customers.
Either way, I'm glad that I didn't promote it because my name and reputation, time
and energy would have all gone out the door and into the trash.
Anyway, there are a couple of sites that are dedicated just to affiliate programs.
AssociatePrograms.com
and ReferIt.com are two good sites
to help you get started.
One thing to please keep in mind ... do NOT over extend yourself by joining
dozens of affiliate programs. That's crazy. Pick 1-3 good programs ... hopefully
each one will be complimentary to the other and just focus on those.
And remember, you will have to promote them. There is no other way for you to make
money. Use pop-under
advertising to automate your promotions ... use TrafficSwarm
to do it all for free ... use ezine advertising
as well.
All the above 3 methods have proven themselves many times and it's a great way
to get started because they are all either super low cost and/or totally
automated.