There is a phrase you’ll hear over and over: The money is in the list. You might get tired of hearing it, but – it’s the truth!

First of all, let’s answer the question, “What is a list?”

A list in Internet marketing terms is a database of contact information for your prospects. So if you have a product or promote products about gardening and I sign up for your list, I’m a prospect that you can market to repeatedly until I unsubscribe.

So why is building a list so important?

Let’s say you start off as an affiliate marketer. You find a niche you truly enjoy and you start working what you’ve learned into some traffic for your affiliate links.

Over a period of 30 days, you funnel 5,000 prospects from the World Wide Web who are interested in your niche straight through your affiliate link to the product owner’s site.

They even buy – yea! You’ve made a 50% commission with a 2% conversion rate. That means 2 out of every 100 people you sent bought the product, and your share was $26.00 (as an example). You earned a cool $2,600 this month – good for you!

But you’re leaving money on the table. Those 100 people who bought from your 5,000 clicks? They’re now on the product owner’s list, not yours. So what he’s going to do is send them more offers over the coming weeks.

After all, they are proven buyers. Over the next 30 days, those buyers fork over some more money for products that complement the original one they bought. That money goes to the product owner, not you – because you passed on building a list the first time around.

You can have unlimited lists for different niches using a simple tool like AWeber, which offers 30 days for $1. Every day you can log in and see how many people have signed up, and you can create automated messages to send out to help convert your list into more sales.

Why should the product owner get to cash in on that person again and again when you’re the one who brought him the customer in the first place? Stake claim to each prospect and leverage your relationship with him for future sales and commissions.