Are you wondering how to make a fortune without putting in too much money? Do you wish to set up something that you can pursue at your own time and pace? Yes? Well, then it only means you are ready to set up your own home-based business. While there are many options as far as a home-based business is concerned, you need to find something that matches your requirements, that is, lets you create a business base without any investment and allows you to work at your own pace.If your thoughts are along the aforementioned lines, then an affiliate marketing business would be ideal for you. For starters, an affiliate marketing business is where you create a website or blog and start promoting a product or service. In the process, you not only attract traffic to your own website but also forward customers to the merchant website that created the product or service. What you get in return is commission, an amount that can be generous if you apply the following tips to your home-based business.Turning your affiliate marketing business into a success will not be possible until you have thorough knowledge about affiliate programs. When you start off, you would obviously not have the complete know-how about such programs and that is exactly why you would need to find out about the most reliable affiliate programs out there.Knowing the ins and outs of an affiliate program comes with understanding its products or services and evaluating the conversion rate in realistic terms. In any affiliate marketing business, the marketer needs to have a clear understanding of how much traffic a certain product or service can attract. It is also important to find out how many of these people actually go on to buy the product or service in question. This is what is referred to as the conversion rate and if this number is below 5%, then you definitely have to sit up and take notice.An important aspect of your home-based business in affiliate marketing lies in finding an affiliate program that will respect your identity as a marketer. The first sign that can suggest whether an affiliate program is good or not is how it appreciates the hard work put in by you. Will the affiliate program recognize your potential if you were to increase the flow of traffic to the merchant website?Will your affiliate website be awarded with a good incentive structure over a period of months? These are a couple of points you need to look into before you take your affiliate marketing business to the next level. Once you have found the right affiliate program for your affiliate marketing business, you can concentrate upon creating a channel to promote products and services by a particular merchant website. The best way to do this is to come up with an effective website or blog which could advertise the product or service in question. No matter what you do, do not forget to use compelling and effective content as a marketing tactic.