Affiliate programs are not new. They’ve been around since the early days of the internet, and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Because of this, the competition in the affiliate marketing space is fierce.
If you want to earn money through an affiliate program, you have to choose it wisely, or you could be wasting your time on a program that won’t pay out much (if any) money at all.
Here are five of the best affiliate programs to choose from so you can be sure you’re getting paid for all your hard work promoting their products or services.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is a form of internet marketing that allows marketers to earn commission from their own products. Any product they promote online can become their affiliate program.
You'll need to create a free account at the company's website, then find a product or service to promote. When potential customers buy the product through your link, you get paid.
Affiliate marketing is when you earn a commission by referring customers, site visitors, etc. to your website or web page.
There are many ways to make money as an affiliate marketer, but affiliate programs usually fall into one of three categories: payments per sale/click (e.g., commissions), payments per lead (you only get paid when your visitor purchases something or fills out a lead form), and revenue sharing (you earn a portion of another business’s income that you send their way).
The most popular type of affiliate marketing today is pay-per-sale where affiliates receive a percentage of each sale they generate. How do I Make Money?:
To make money with affiliate marketing, you need to find someone who will give you a referral fee for any sales they make through your link. This can be done through various sites like ShareASale or ClickBank.
You then use that link in an ad campaign or other promotion to drive traffic to it. If people click on it and buy something from that company, then you will get a cut of those profits!
1. Amazon Associates
If you're looking for a good place to start, Amazon Associates is a great program. Anyone can enroll and will earn up to 10% in referral fees from sales on Amazon.
The best part about Amazon Associates is that there are no special requirements or disclosures and it's open to anyone in any country. Start by simply creating an account with your valid email address and you're off!
You'll have access to some analytics tools and be able to share links through social media and more, so even if you don't think of yourself as an affiliate marketer, you can still find success with Amazon Associates.
Amazon is the biggest site to use this type of marketing. There are 2 types of programs: Amazon Associate and Amazon Authorized Reseller. You choose what you want to do.
2. ClickBank
This is one of the best affiliate programs out there. We have used and highly recommend them over the past 6 years.
They pay daily via PayPal (you can request your payout method), have many high-paying affiliates, and the commissions are higher than others like eBay.
ClickBank is an online marketplace where you can start selling products and get a commission. You can sell both digital products, like e-books and software, as well as physical goods like t-shirts and cell phones.
The main appeal of ClickBank is that there’s no need to create your own product. Simply find what’s hot in ClickBank’s marketplace and promote it with ads, free giveaways, or paid advertisements. This means you won’t have to worry about handling inventory or shipping orders.
Additionally, many successful affiliates use social media coupons—special links that give Facebook users access to a discount on an affiliate store—as well as exclusive promo codes for newsletter subscribers.
ClickBank is a bit different from other affiliate programs. It is based on performance: how many sales you make, how much traffic you generate, and what your customer lifetime value is.
3. ShareASale
ShareASale is one of those companies that will charge you a hefty fee if you want more support than they provide, but it’s also one of those companies that has proven effective for its members.
It’s also a larger affiliate network which means that there are more available products and offers. While it won’t be your first choice if you're just getting started, ShareASale may be worth an additional look as you gain experience.
Like Commission Junction, their commission rates change frequently and their approval process takes time. - Browse Websites & Products: You can browse through thousands of different websites and see what kind of products each website is offering.
ShareASale is one of my favorite affiliate networks because they offer a lot of great options as far as merchants go. They have just about everything from fashion items to software, but they do tend to favor larger companies which might leave some smaller bloggers out in the cold. Their interface is easy enough to use and they provide plenty of information about each merchant including average commission rates, CPA info, etc., which makes promoting them quite simple.
In addition, you can even view details about each product such as price, reviews, ratings, and much more! The search function on Shareasale allows you to search by keyword or browse through different categories such as electronics, apparel, health & beauty or home & garden, etc.
4. CJ Affiliate
CJ affiliate is an advertising network that offers a good variety of programs and products. Depending on your niche, you can find all sorts of vendors who want to be advertised on your site in order to drive traffic and increase sales.
As a blogger, there are very few affiliate programs that actually pay you when someone clicks through an ad and visits their site, so it’s important you choose a program with good conversion rates—otherwise, all your time blogging could end up being fruitless.
You should also be wary of anything too shady or that requires fake reviews: While it may seem like free money at first glance, most affiliates will shut down (or get shut down) for such things quickly; by then it could be too late.
5. Bluehost
The reason we are including Bluehost in our list of top affiliate programs is that it is really simple for you to join and easy for us to do a review about it.
All you need to do is follow their instructions, create a hosting account and start sending traffic. They have clear instructions on how much each sale will earn you so there are no hidden surprises.
You also get up to 75% commissions on every sale which I think is very good if compared with most companies out there.
You can even use your own referral link if you wish and make more money out of it! As far as customers go, they seem pretty happy because they have many options when it comes to features such as domain privacy, free SSL certificate, etc.
