You just signed up with an marketing opportunity. What is marketing? To you, it is the passport to financial freedom--the best way to make money online. I know, everything looks perfect. You have carefully chosen an opportunity which promises to explode your income. You envision quitting your job and lying on a tropical beach (with your laptop nearby, of course, so you can track the orders coming in). The cares of the 9 to 5 world seem far away as you contemplate the profit potential of this opportunity to make free money online.

The advertising is slick and the product looks great. The benefits have been clearly described and are very appealing. The product works because you have tested it yourself personally. How better to sell a product than to clearly understand its use and benefits from first hand experience? Professional marketing help is available from your upline.

Now as you make your way through the maze of promotional opportunities out there to kick off your product online, you find yourself pulled in many different directions. One site has a great deal on website views—just send them the URL to your sales page along with credit card payment for 10,000 pop-under page views. Another site promises full display of your ad in all the major internet e-zines for a bargain price (the price is great even if it is a bit out of reach). Your favorite traffic exchange makes you a special offer on page hits, along with a limited time offer membership special you can't turn down. Another site promises full search engine submission and optimization (SEO) of your sales page—full professional support—for a steep price. Yet another website promises better page ranking if you will sign-up for a monthly membership in their link exchange. It goes on and on. The opportunities are endless.

Funny thing is, many of these opportunities will work for you if you know how to use them properly. And if you budget for them correctly.

Budgeting skills are essential for the beginning online marketer. You'll find that upsell is even more common in the marketing world than it is in your neighborhood retail store. If you continue to purchase every additional product offered to you, you recognize that you will be out of business in short order. Their upsell may be your downfall. The first rule of the game is to stay in the game!

So what to do? First analyze all the opportunities at hand to see which one has the best fit with your particular marketing opportunity. If you are offering an e-book from your sales page, you may find it best to purchase page views, for example—that might be the fastest route to getting the e-book in your customer's hands (although you could also consider some type of e-mail campaign, but only to a "safe list"—we don't want any spamming complaints here, you know).

Carefully consider the benefits of each offer, and choose the ones that are "right" for your opportunity, and that you can afford.

There is a wide world of free advertising out there—you have only to look for it. You can create your own

affiliate marketing blog and promote your opportunity regularly there. (A content-filled blog with unique postings can achieve enviable Google rankings, meaning more traffic for you. Traffic that can result in sales.) You can participate in free link exchanges with other webmasters. You can post regularly on home business message boards—the link in your signature directs readers back to your sales page. Regular posting results in free content-related backlinks for you. These backlinks are very important for elevated search engine ranking that will result in the traffic you desire. There are free ads available if you look around—sometimes a free ad will be offered in exchange for siging up for an e-zine. Here are a few more marketing secrets. There are free online directories around if you seach for them. You can look for fellow marketers with huge mailing lists and form an agreement to swap mutually beneficial ads. No cost there. You can make up fliers and handouts to distribute locally. How about a free or low-cost ad in the neighborhood penny-shopper newsletter? Explore the amazing abundance of free articles and essays online, full of marketing suggestions, to learn more about any business-building topic imaginable.

The point is, it would be wise to proceed carefully in your marketing expenditures from free to low-cost, then to moderate-cost and upward, only as your budget allows for it. That is the path to the best marketing practice. Otherwise, you may soon find your profits being eaten away by reckless spending and waste. Put your dollars where you will get the most bang for your buck! Get advice from others on advertising resources that will pull their weight and result in product orders for you. Put off joining any expensive internet marketing programs with high monthly fees until the fees are covered by profit you have coming in now.

In short, take it easy in the beginning. Let your wallet rest every now and then as you look for affordable means to promote your opportunity. The goal is to gradually build your business to a healthy profit level. Too much cash outlay too early in the game can result in a quick "crash and burn".