A secret weapon I use to keep all my affiliate commission is creating a redirect for my affiliate link.
OK ~ it's not actually a secret, but it took me a long time to figure out it was a really good idea, and if you are a beginner, it might still be a secret to you.
I had heard plenty of people talk about redirecting your affiliate links, but it didn't really make much sense, I didn't see the reason for it and I used to think this was a step that wouldn't really matter if I skipped ~ however  ~ I am seriously rethinking that.
What is a redirect? A redirect is a "pretty" domain that when someone goes there it actually points them to the sales page via your affiliate link.
So it seems like you're going to one place ~ a nice neat domain name ~ but you are really being redirected to your affiliate sales page ~ you know the link that's sometimes 157 characters long? What are the benefits of a redirect? 1.
Decrease commission theft.
This is especially true when you are working with clickbank.
When people click your hop link they can easily take out your affiliate id in the link and replace it with their own, thereby saving themselves some money and stealing YOUR commission.
2.
More related url.
People like to see the what the link they are clicking on is about.
If I'm looking at a site talking about losing weight I'd much rather see a domain name that looks related instead of some name or number followed by a hoplink.
  It instills confidence that they are going somewhere related and not whisked off to some crazy porn site :) 3.
Sometimes product owners have to make changes.
  Whether someone spams the domain name their sales page is on, thereby getting the domain banned by ISPs, or maybe they decide the software they started with just doesn't work anymore and they decide to change to another provider, or any other myriad of possibilities.
These ALL change your affiliate address.
If you have used your straight affiliate url you are going to have to go out into the internet and find ALL the places you have linked to the sales page and change the link.
  Good luck with that.
However, when you have a redirect, all you have to do is go to your domain name registrar and change the place the domain is pointing to your new affiliate link.
A few ways you can do the redirects.
1.
Purchase a .
info domain name to use.
These are generally very cheap ~ less than a dollar.
2.
Use subdomains.
If you have hosting you can create subdomains for each product.
You can't use subdomains for EzineArticles, but they work great elsewhere.
3.
You can create a full redirect page on your website.
(you need hosting for this one too) Depending on what you need your redirects for will help you make the decision of what kind to use.
  But please, understand that using some kind of redirect is really important.
It will help you keep you money in your pocket and make the "earning curve" just that much shorter.