There are some ninjas on the internet earning thousands of dollars each year by doing something called affiliate marketing. Given the current estimation of the industry size being around $12 billion dollars, most of you who are reading this text have experienced some part of the affiliate marketing. If you have ever seen an ad while browsing something online, the big money was right under your nose. You are shown the ad because you were targeted as a potential customer by the affiliate marketers. If you ever clicked on that ad and did what was required, a commission will be send to the affiliate marketer. Imagine if each of these ads pays the affiliate $2, with 1 million visitors to the ad will make the affiliate a millionaire in one day. Unfortunately, that is not the right math. Affiliate marketing might be the most beginner-friendly way to make decent money online, still the earning comes at a cost. One needs to acquire traffic before one can show those ads to the potential customers. If you have no means of obtaining free traffic, which is usually the case for the beginners, you will need to buy traffic from a traffic source. The golden part of the profit formula in affiliate marketing is all about acquiring paid traffic at a lower price and getting more ads visitors converted. In other words, when the commission you received is greater than the price you paid to obtain traffic, you are profitable with this business.