If you’re looking for a profitable way to make money online, joining an affiliate marketing program might be of great help but “what is an affiliate program”? And how do affiliate programs work?
An affiliate program is a referral marketing strategy that pays a commission to a person (an affiliate) for selling another person’s product or service. It acts as a mediator that provides a link between website publishers and companies.
How an affiliate program works is quite simple – you join an affiliate program you like. You’re given a link that is tied to your account.
Then you grab your affiliate link and place it on your website so that a customer can click on it and get to another website. And if they purchase anything on that website you get paid by the program owner.
Table of Contents
What Is An Affiliate Program?
Affiliate programs are also known as performance-based marketing. It’s a referral system that pays a sales commission to you (an affiliate) for helping to sell a product or service created by another person (either an individual or company).
Most online companies use affiliate networks or programs to create bond sales results.
The main purpose of this is to get ideal customers from the website’s visitors to purchase their product or service.
Setting up an Affiliate program helps both the merchant (product creators) and affiliate marketer to connect with potential buyers and make money.
That said…
As an affiliate of a certain program, you’re provided with special marketing materials that you need to market the product successfully.
Marketing materials such as affiliate links, banners, sales letters, training videos, etc.
And whenever someone clicks on your affiliate link or banner, they’re taken to the originating website (the product owner’s website).
Let’s take a quick look at how affiliate programs actually work in a nutshell.
HOW DO AFFILIATE PROGRAMS WORK
The concept of how affiliate programs work is quite simple.
Online companies or middlemen who want to reach a larger audience and increase their income or product sales set up an affiliate program.
And allow other people (affiliates) to join the program for free and promote their product or service for them in exchange for a commission.
When the affiliate joins the program, they’re given a unique link or code (which is called the affiliate link).
This link is tied to the affiliate account and tracks every sale, traffic, and commission earned by the affiliate.
And whenever the affiliate promotes this link and a customer clicks on the link to the originating website.
The affiliate network or program will quickly place COOKIES on the customer’s computer or device.
The cookie is simply to track the customer’s location, activities, and when they actually buy the product.
And if the customer goes on to buy the product, you (the affiliate) are compensated.
However, if they didn’t buy the product at that moment, but later on bought it – let’s say 30 or 60 days as the cookie duration, you’ll still get paid your commission.
But do remember, this can only happen if the customer buys the product within the cookie duration and they have not cleared the cookie from their device.
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A Quick History About Affiliate Program
Wondering how long affiliate programs have been around?
Affiliate programs have been around for more than decades.
The concept of affiliate marketing was introduced on the internet in the year 1989 by a man named William J. Tobin.
Then in November 1994, paying commission for referring people was introduced.
But it was not that popular back then until 1996 when Jeff Bezos of Amazon launched its first affiliate program called Amazon Associate.
So, in the affiliate program industry, the Amazon associate program was the first and most popular affiliate program on the internet before any other affiliate program.
Type Of Affiliate Programs
There are 3 main types of affiliate programs that are often leveraged by most people. Cost per action, cost per view, and cost per sale.
- Cost Per Action (CPA)
Cost Per Action (CPA): In this type of affiliate marketing program, an advertiser pays you (the affiliate) whenever someone clicks on your link and completes a certain task designed by the advertiser. It could be signing up with something, downloading an App, joining vendors’ newsletters, etc. Anything that involves submitting an email address.
These are the most common CPA offers:
- Lead generation form
- Purchases
- Free trial sign-ups
- Email submits offers, etc
- Pay-Per-View (PPV)
Pay-Per-View (PPV): Pay-per-view or click types of programs pay you a commission based on how many time a customer click or view an ad, or banner, regardless of whether a sale is made or not
These are the common offer of PPV:
- Links
- Banners,
- Advertisement (ads)
- Pay-Per-Sale (PPS)
Pay-Per-Sale (PPS): This is a type of marketing where advertisers or product owners pay an affiliate based on the number of sales generated. Pay per sale type of affiliate program offers a higher payout commission than the above-mentioned.
Here are the offers of PPS:
- Products
- Services
Also, some programs offer two tier commission, which allows you to earn a higher percentage of income.
Let’s see what two-tier affiliate programs are?
Two-tier affiliate programs are brands or programs that allow one to earn a commission not only on their own sale of a product or service but sales from other people who they refer to or bring into the system as an affiliate.
WHY AFFILIATE PROGRAMS?
Wondering what are the benefits of joining an affiliate program?
There’re tons of benefits you can derive from joining an affiliate program.
Most affiliate programs allow you to have access to different offers (products, services, tools, and software) without you applying for each of them individually. It also allows you to make money without having to create your own product or services.
As an affiliate, you’re able to introduce the company or the company’s product to your ideal customers or audience without any hassle and still make a good income.
That said…
I know a lot of you might be asking why would a company or individual pay money (commission) to an affiliate for selling their product.
And how would it benefit you and the company?
Affiliate programs offer a win-win situation for both merchants and affiliates.
Here Are Some Of The Reasons Of Joining An Affiliate Program:
The Main Benefit Of Joining An Affiliate Program Is To Make Money
The primary reason why most online entrepreneurs and merchants join or set up an affiliate program is simply to make money and live a life of freedom.
And it’s interesting that the vast majority of the people who join or set up an affiliate program do so.
There are tons of people who are making way more than a full-time income from affiliate programs without having to create their own products whatsoever.
And there are also people who are making a handsome income by creating their own products and allowing other people to promote them for them.
Affiliate Programs Are Easy To Easy To Join
One amazing thing is that most affiliate programs are FREE to join, it doesn’t cost you a dime (no money) to join any affiliate program or network.
And after deciding to join, most of them will approve your account instantly.
You Don’t Have To Create Your Own Product
One of the coolest things about joining an affiliate program is that you get access to someone else’s product or services and promote it as your own and still make a significant income.
You don’t have to go through the headache of creating your own product to make money online.
However, the only thing you’re responsible for as an affiliate is to promote the product…
And get paid for driving as much as target traffic (customers) to buy the product through the link given to them by the affiliate program.
You Decide How Much You Want To Make
Each affiliate program or network has its own commission rate that they pay out to its affiliate, this means you can decide how much you’ll get paid for promoting a product.
You can find a program with high ticket offers – programs that pay a high commission rate for promoting their product or service and join.
…Instead of joining one that offers a low commission rate.
For example, you can decide to join a program that pays 70% or more commission rates on every single sale you make.
Instead of one that pays you 3%.
That said…
There are tons of programs or merchants out there that are willing to pay you a high commission for promoting their product.
Do your research and you’ll find some of those programs.
By the way, if you want my suggestion, you can find some really cool high-paying affiliate programs by joining ClickBank.com.
It Helps Companies To Increase The Sale Of Their Product
The main goal of most online companies is to sell more of their product, so they set up an affiliate program and allow other people to promote the product for them for a commission.
And this helps the company get their product seen by a large audience and sell more of their product without much risk and cost.
However, the company only pays a commission to the affiliate until the product is sold,
But then they’re still going to make a profit even after paying their affiliates (You and I) a commission.
To Help Solve A Customer Problem
Day in, day out, they’re people looking for solutions to their problems, and some of these problems might be (how to make money online, how to lose weight, etc,)
Most often, affiliate programs offer products that can help solve those problems.
This is a win for a customer because they’re getting the necessary help and solutions to their problems and pain point.
Can You Make Money With An Affiliate Program
The short answer to that is yes you can. I personally know people who are making a cool buck simply by referring people to an affiliate program. There are even people who have become millionaires from affiliate marketing programs.
Whether you’re an affiliate for a certain program or you create your own program, there are profits to be made from affiliate programs.
However, an even better way to make serious money online is to start your own affiliate program…
And allow other affiliates to advertise your products and services for you.
As long as you offer a decent commission rate for your affiliate program…
You’ll attract several affiliates who will be interested in becoming an affiliate of your program.
But the drawback or downside of creating your own product is that you’ll have to invest a ton of time and effort to get your program up and running.
You’ll be handling all of the tracking, enrollment, refund, and customer service. issuing of commission, etc.
Unless you have a team to help you with that, you’ll overwhelm yourself.
But all the same, creating your own product can be very profitable.
How Much Can You Make With An Affiliate Program?
How much you can earn with an affiliate program is endless, however, average affiliates are earning anywhere around $5,000 to $10,000 per month and there are some who are making far more than that.
And you can also make nothing if you don’t put in the work, because making money online, probably with an affiliate program is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
It requires time, massive work, commitment, and consistency.
But generally speaking…
How much can you actually earn from promoting an affiliate marketing program depends on factors such as:
- Your Niche
- The quality of your Product
- Your experience level in your niche
- Content quality
- Traffic quality and level, etc
Let’s take a quick look at each of these factors individually and see what important role they play in your success.
- Your Niche
Niche – In my opinion, I think the number one reason why most people struggle or fail to make money online with affiliate marketing programs is that they choose the wrong kind of niche.
A lot of people go after a niche simply because it has the potential to make them a lot of money.
They try to go after high-competition niches like (health and fitness, finance, recipe niches, etc).
Going after high competitive niches like that, well, guess what? It will probably take you a very long time to make money from your affiliate business.
That said…
One of the best and possible ways to make money from affiliate marketing fast is to go after a niche that has less competition.
Especially if you’re just starting out.
- The Demand For Your Product
Product – As an affiliate, In order to make the most money out of a product.
You need a product that’s in high demand – a product that has a lot of interest in the marketing place.
A product that people are willing to spend money on over and over again.
Having a product that has high demand in the marketplace, guess what? You’ll likely get a ton of interest in that product and easily sell it fast.
- Your Experience Level About Your Niche
Experience – What is your knowledge level in the niche you’re in? Business is about helping people and the more knowledge you have about your niche, the more value you’ll be able to deliver to your audience.
The more value you provide that helps solve people’s problems or pain they’re having challenges with, the higher the chances of them also clicking on your affiliate link and purchasing whatever you’re recommending to them.
If you don’t provide any helpful value to your audience, and you’re just trying to make money from them.
They’re not going to pay any attention to you and your recommendation.
REMEMBER, more value = more money.
- The Quality of Your Content
Content – Online content is KING, you can’t become a success overnight without first doing the work, and online that work is creating a helpful, unique, relevant, and steady flow of content for people to consume.
If your content helps people, they’ll likely want to check on your recommendations to learn more which eventually leads to sales.
Traffic – Online traffic is the lifeblood of your business, it’s the machine that runs the whole process of making money online easily for you.
Without it, you won’t make any money online.
That said, when trying to drive traffic to your affiliate offer, don’t just focus on any type of traffic because not everybody is your ideal customer
Target people who are interested in your product and are more likely to purchase from you.
HOW MUCH DO AFFILIATE PROGRAMS EARN?
The affiliate marketing industry is rapidly growing. It is reported that affiliate programs generate 15%-30% of sales for merchants.
And 23% of merchant income comes from affiliate marketing, meaning, decent income is being generated by affiliate programs.
That said…
Let’s take a look at how much some of the top affiliate programs are earning and their source of revenue.
| Name of Affiliate Programs | Estimated Revenue Per Month | Source Of Income | Estimated Traffic Per Month | Alexa’s Global Ranking |
| ClickBank.com | $14,001,120 | Affiliate Programs | 77,790,000 | 1,907 |
| Amazon.com | $525,758,040 | Retails | 2,920,879,110 | 12 |
| ShareAsale.com | $13,839,12 | Ads and Affiliate Programs | 76,890,000 | 1,937 |
| JvZoo.com | $2,242,440 | Ads and Affiliate Programs | 12,459,990 | 5,270 |
| Cj.com | $16,339,320 | Ads and Affiliate Programs | 90,780,000 | 1,474 |
| eBay.com | $388,087,200 | Ads and Affiliate Programs | 2,156,043,960 | 41 |
| Clickfunnels.com | $18,235,080 | Sales Funnel | 101,310,000 | 1,123 |
| SEMrush.com | $9,459,720 | Ads and Affiliate Programs | 52,560,000 | 2,749 |
| Getreponse.com | $13,444,920 | Sales Funnel and Affiliate programs | 74,700,000 | 2,010 |
| LeadPage.com | $5,760 | Affiliate Programs | 33,123 | 899,319 |
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF COMMISSION DO AFFILIATE PROGRAMS PAY?
What percentage of commission affiliate programs pay depends on the kind of product and network you’re working with or promoting and also the niche you’re in.
If you promote digital products your commission might be a little bit higher than a physical product.
Naturally, physical products offer low commission rates.
That said…
Digital products generally pays higher commission rates somewhere between 20% – 75% and 100% in some cases.
This is because it costs less money to produce digital products.
While, physical product generally pays a low percentage, usually ranging from 5% – 10%.
Most digital products pay a monthly recurring commission, meaning you get paid month after month for selling the product once but with the physical product, you only get paid once.
ClickBank.com is a well-known marketplace that mainly focuses on digital products and with physical products you can look over to Amazon.com.
Let’s look at some differences between digital and physical products:
| DIGITAL PRODUCTS | PHYSICAL PRODUCT |
| 1. It pays a higher commission | Low commission |
| 2. It cost less money to create the product | It is expensive to create the product |
| 3. It offers recurring income | Single income |
| 4. No shipping cost | Involve shipping cost |
PAYMENT METHOD USED BY AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
Are you asking how affiliates get paid? There are various ways that affiliates get paid after selling a product successfully.
Payment methods provided by affiliate programs:
- PayPal
- Direct Deposit
- Prepaid Debit Card
- Gift Cards
- Checks, etc
But generally, most of the programs utilize PayPal and direct deposit to generate payment either automatically or manually.
Keep this in mind, some affiliate programs pay their affiliate commission on a monthly basis, while some pay once you have reached a certain amount in your account.
And some payout commission instantly while a sale is made.
That said do remember that you only get paid when a sale is made successfully.
How To Find And Join An Affiliate Program
Joining an affiliate program is not that hard. But the question is do you reach the requirement to be accepted into most of the top affiliate programs out there?
So what’s the requirement?
Well, the requirement is to have some level of traffic or followers either on your blog, YouTube channel, or whatever platform you’re leveraging.
Why?
The thing is some affiliate marketing programs would want you to at least have a decent amount of traffic before joining their program.
If you don’t have any traffic, they won’t accept you into their system.
Why?
The reason is that they want you to sell their product as fast as possible.
For example, Amazon likes this, if you don’t get any sales within your first 3 months, they’ll terminate your account.
So do a lot of other affiliate programs as well, for some 6 months.
But not all of them actually.
That said…
To join an affiliate program, you need to search for programs that are related to your niche.
Now…
To join an affiliate program – simply Google (your niche+affiliate programs). And you’ll discover some really cool ones.
For example, if you are in the affiliate marketing niche like me, you can Google affiliate marketing+programs.
And as you have found that great program of your choice, the next thing is to join as an affiliate.
And as you apply to join, you have to wait for moderation.
Let me explain that.
What Is Moderation In Affiliate Marketing?
Moderation in affiliate marketing simply means the duration or the time it takes for a merchant or company to process your application for joining their program as an affiliate. At this stage, they decide whether to approve or decline your application.
There are two types of moderation:
- Auto-accept: With this type, the merchant or the company allows the affiliate to be accepted automatically into their system and without any manual process.
- Read or hand moderation: With this one, the merchant or the company reads all the details you provided on your application form and make a decision to either accept or decline you according to the information you provided.
Now, that you have been approved and you gain access to your affiliate link, you can start promoting it to your audience.
For those of you who don’t know what an affiliate link really means?.
An affiliate link is a unique code or something like an identification number that’s tied to your affiliate account and it’s that link you’ll drive traffic to.
How To Make Money With An Affiliate Program
First, you need to find a niche. A niche is simply a topic you’re interested in and want to learn about.
Once you decide on a niche, you need to pick an affiliate program that you believe in or more importantly, have used before.
The program has to be relevant to your niche and has to be of good quality.
Pick a promotional platform. There are tons of promotion platforms online that you can use to promote affiliate products.
Blogging is becoming a popular form of communication, which means that there is an opportunity to earn a decent income from your product through blogging.
Build a blog and start producing compelling content on your blog. As your readers find your blog content helpful.
They’ll click on your affiliate link to get more information, and if they do purchase the product.
You’ll get paid a commission amount that’s determined by your affiliate program.
You can also place advertising banners on your affiliate website if you like. In this way, you could be earning multiple incomes from your blog.
In my opinion, I think blogging is the best way to make money with affiliate marketing.
- PS. I have another post where I go more into detail on how to make money with an affiliate marketing program. Check it out.
3 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR AFFILIATE EARNINGS
Increasing your income whether your own or someone else’s product or services is not easy unless you apply strategies.
Why?
Well, this is because nowadays the competition level in affiliate marketing is very tough without a proper marketing strategy, you’ll be left behind.
But the good news is that there are some ways in which you can go about this. So, let’s take a look at that.
Here Are Some Ways To Increase Your Earning In Affiliate marketing:
1. Improve Your SEO Strategy
Search engine optimization is by far one of the best ways of increasing product traffic and sales.
Search engine traffic is high-quality, targeted, and qualified traffic source.
People who visit your website from a search engine result are always looking for products or solutions to specific problems.
And if you can properly optimize your page for SEO over time, you can rank in the first position of the SERP and start to attract a ton of high-quality traffic to your website.
And if you provide your traffic with exactly what they came to your site for.
Guess what?
Over time, you can start to drive tons of sales and revenue into your business.
2. Build An Audience That Knows, Like, And Trust You
The key component of making money online is to build an audience that knows you and trusts you and your recommendations.
That said…
There Are various ways in which you can build an audience and this could be through your email list, YouTube subscriber, blog or social media followers, etc.
Now…
As you have built your audiences, you need to build trust and relationships with them before you can be able to sell anything to them.
Why?
Well, online TRUST is extremely important for your success, people buy from people they know, like trust. If they don’t know you, they won’t buy from you.
So how do I build this trust factor?
Well, you do this simply by identifying your target audience’s biggest problem and pain point they’re having challenges with.
And simply provide a solution to that problem they’re facing.
The solution can be in the form of written content, video, etc.
And if your content helps them enough, they’ll probably buy whatever you recommend to them.
3. Learn Marketing
It’s often said if you are marketing to anybody, you are marketing to nobody.
If you really want to make money online, then you need to learn marketing – you need to learn how to properly market your product the right way to the right person.
You need to know who your target or ideal customers are and target them only, not just anybody.
Target audience who may be likely to buy or interested in whatever you’re promoting and target them only.
For example, you can’t promote dog food to somebody who is a cat owner. It won’t work.
- PS: I have another post where I share with you more details on how to increase affiliate marketing income, sales, and traffic.
How To Keep Track Of Your Affiliate Program Performance And Sales
To succeed in affiliate marketing or increase your potential earnings in affiliate marketing…
you need to get clear on how your audience or visitors are engaging with your affiliate links and your conversion rate.
This means you need to track your marketing campaign.
While it can be difficult to manually track all your affiliate links one by one to see which one is working and which is not.
You can use tracking tools instead to automate the process.
Tracking tools help keep you updated and provide you with details and stats about your affiliate link’s performance.
That said…
There are some really cool tracking tools that can help you track, manage, and analyze statistics…
And understand or know how many people visit your affiliate offer and how many commissions you earn.
Below Are Some Of The Best Affiliate Tracking Tools:
Post Affiliate Pro
Post Affiliate Pro – It’s the best affiliate tracking software in the world and is trusted by over 27,000 companies all around the world.
If you run an online business or own an online store or eCommerce website this tool can be of great help.
If you want to manage and track your affiliate link and network, Post Affiliate Pro allows you to do all of that successfully.
It allows you to structure your commission and also monitor your commission all in one place.
Post Affiliate Pro also comes with powerful features such as:
- Affiliate Tracking
- Banner Management
- Commission Management
- Affiliate Management
- Fraud Detection, etc
- PS: You can start tracking or managing your affiliate link and income with Post Affiliate Pro here.
BEST WAY TO PROMOTE AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
There are two common ways you can promote your affiliate offers, thus, through free and paid methods.
Below I share with you some of the best ways to promote affiliate products:
- Blogging
- YouTube Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Forum Marketing
- Pinterest Marketing
- Banner Ads
- Facebook Marketing, etc
The above are some of the best ways of promoting an affiliate offer. I want to explain the first three.
1. Blogging
In my opinion, blogging is by far one of the best ways of promoting an affiliate product.
By the way, blogging is also known as article marketing.
That said…
To do affiliate marketing with a blog, you simply produce content that’s related to your niche or product and then paste your affiliate link within your content.
In blogging, the helpfulness and the quality of your content decide the success of your blog.
If you can produce high-quality and relevant content that helps solve your reader’s problems and needs.
Over time, your blog will grow to a point where you’ll be getting tons of targeted traffic per day or month which might turn into loyal followers and customers.
And also helps you stand as an authority figure or an expert in your niche.
If people sense you as someone who knows what he or she is talking about a lot of the time, they’d purchase what you’re recommending or promoting on your blog or YouTube.
Remember, this will only happen if you provide enough useful value for your readers.
- If you don’t have a blog yet, you can start your blog here based on this tutorial.
2. YouTube Marketing
YouTube is also one of the best ways of promoting affiliate marketing products.
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world besides Google and gets tens and thousands of video views per month.
YouTube is owned by Google as well.
That said…
Leveraging YouTube for affiliate marketing might be of great help as a lot of people are preferring video content over written content nowadays.
If you’re comfortable being in front of the camera, I’d highly recommend you do YouTube.
The concept of how affiliate marketing works on YouTube is quite simple.
You simply search what phrases, terms, or questions people are typing into the search engines when looking for an answer related to your niche or the product you’re an affiliate for.
Then, you create video content related to those search terms, and then in the description field below your videos, you place a link to your affiliate offer.
And if your subscribers or viewers click on that link and purchase the product you make money.
The best thing about using YouTube marketing is that you get targeted visitors which might turn into a big sale over time
3. Email Marketing
This is extremely important for your success. As an affiliate marketer, email marketing is by far one of the best ways to profit online.
Research has shown that people get to see an offer 7-times before making up their mind to buy it.
So if you’re not generating leads for your business and leveraging the power of email marketing.
And you’re just sending people to direct affiliate links.
Well, guess what? You’re leaving huge money on the table, my friend.
That said…
Having an email list alone is not enough, you need to build the know, like, and trust factor with your list.
So, how do I do that? Great question!
And you do this simply by continually adding useful value to their lives on a daily basis while they’re on your list.
And as you do that for quite some time, your list will start to TRUST you and even start to see you as an expert.
And as a result of that, they’ll be willing to purchase anything you recommend to them.
That said…
The amazing thing about email marketing is that you can promote different products or even sell your own product to your list over and over again.
- PS: I have another post where I share with you the benefit of email marketing for affiliate marketing. Check it out.
6 BEST AFFILIATE PROGRAMS EXAMPLES
There are hundreds and even thousands of affiliate programs out that you can join for free.
But the funny thing is, not all of them are legitimate.
However…
Some are really good and pay really good commissions for selling their products or services.
So, before joining any program, I’d recommend doing thorough research about the product to see if it’s of good quality or not.
So, how do I know if an affiliate program is legit or not? Great question!
research and find other affiliates who are promoting the same product you plan to promote.
And see if they are really making money with the program or not and if they are, great.
You can also read reviews about the product to see what other customers are saying about the program.
Now, if you’re satisfied with what you see. Go ahead and enroll in that program
Now…
As you know what makes a good affiliate program, the question is, where can you find a product that’s congruent with your niche?
Below are some of the best marketplaces to find good products to promote.
To make things easy we’ll be looking at both single and recurring commission affiliate programs.
So Let’s Start With Single Commission Affiliate Programs:
1. ClickBank
If you are already into affiliate marketing I believe you’ve already heard and know much about ClickBank.
But to those of you who don’t know much about ClickBank.
A Quick History About ClickBank:
ClickBank is not a product, it’s an affiliate network that hosts affiliate programs. ClickBank has thousands of products in every niche you can think of.
It’s one of the leading marketplaces for digital products with over 200 million customers in over 190 countries.
ClickBank has about 276 product categories and subcategories which makes it easy to find any product of your choice.
ClickBank is one of the best and favorite platforms for most affiliates because it offer generous commission rates.
Commission Rate:
They offer commissions ranging between 40% to 75% and more, and they also have products that pay recurring commissions.
Also…
When it comes to payment – they pay their affiliate on time.
ClickBank Affiliate Program:
The ClickBank affiliate program has over 6 million vendors on its platform and 100,000 active affiliates promoting ClickBank each and every month.
Commission Payout:
ClickBank has paid over 2 billion to its affiliates.
How To Become a Successful ClickBank Affiliate:
To become a successful affiliate marketer of ClickBank, the best strategy is to learn from other successful ClickBank affiliates. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, model what’s working for others and apply it to your business.
What I Don’t Like About ClickBank:
Though ClickBank is an amazing platform for affiliate marketing, one thing I don’t like about them is that they force their affiliates to undergo payment fees.
Another thing is that they don’t allow their affiliates and product creators to connect or communicate with each other directly.
2. ShareAsale
This is also one of the largest and most popular networks on the internet. It has over 4,000 merchants with 40 different categories.
ShareAsale has something for everyone.
I mean they have products or services in any niche or topic you can think of promoting as an affiliate.
Does It Cost To Become A ShareAsale Affiliate?
No, to become an affiliate of ShareASale it’s absolutely free, but you need to get approved by the merchant before you can promote their product or service.
Some merchants may approve you instantly, for some, they might want to review your traffic level before they accept you as an affiliate into their system.
What I Don’t Like About ShareASale:
It’s difficult to get approval into the system especially when you’re a beginner with less traffic.
3. CJ Affiliate
CJ Affiliate was first known as Commission Junction. It was founded in the year 1998 and is believed to be one of the largest and most well-known affiliate networks on the internet.
If you are into the affiliate marketing space for a while I believe you have probably heard of them before.
That said…
CJ Affiliate network has products and services available for anyone to promote irrespective of the niche you’re in and the size or level of your traffic.
What I Like About The Product:
They offer a long cookie lifetime
Another cool thing is that they have different vendors in different niches, which makes it so easy to find different offers at the same place once you get approved into the platform.
What I Don’t Like About CJ Affiliate:
CJ Affiliate is a good affiliate network but Since the platform has too many large vendors, its customer support system is very slow in response.
Another thing also is that the platform is not user-friendly, especially for beginners, it looks a bit complicated unless you take the time to study it. My opinion!
4. eBay Partner Network
eBay is also one of the largest affiliate marketplaces with over 182 million active buyers worldwide and over 6.7 million sellers.
They have amazing items at a decent price, however, they sell most of their products at a set price.
Does It Cost To Join the eBay Partner Program?
If you’re looking to promote products on eBay as an affiliate, you can absolutely join their platform for free.
And start promoting their product either through your blog, YouTube channel, or any sort of platform of your choice.
eBay Commission Rate:
As a publisher of eBay, your commission ranges between 50-70% per product sale or auction.
What I Don’t Like About eBay:
Joining eBay as an affiliate is easy and simple and may seem like a perfect platform.
They can get your account blocked without any notice or warning if you violate their terms of use.
Also…
They offer a short cookie lifetime and an auction model of sales which is not really attractive in my opinion.
5. JVZoo Affiliate Network
JVZoo is also one of the fastest-growing affiliate networks on the internet right now. The term JVZoo actually stands for (Joint Venture Zoo). JVZoo was founded in the year 2001.
That said…
On JVZoo, you can promote products or services as an affiliate or sell your own product on their platform with a fully automated process.
The platform is super easy to use even as a complete beginner.
JVZoo partners with different vendors and companies, so there’s something available for anyone to promote as an affiliate.
You can find any product in any niche on JVZoo, they have about 18 million product units, and their main focus is on digital products.
Is It Free To Join The JVZoo Affiliate Program?
It’s absolutely free to join jvzOO as an affiliate and there’s nothing like a monthly fee. But before you can promote any product or service on the platform, you need to submit an application to the product owner and they can choose to approve or reject it.
What Commission Rate Does JVZoo Pay Its Affiliate?
As an affiliate of JVZoo, you can expect to earn a commission ranging between 30-100% per product sales which to me, is pretty cool.
But you’ll be charged 5% for every sale you make.
What I Don’t Like About JVZoo:
Sometimes, they don’t pay commissions to their affiliate on time.
6. Amazon Associates
Amazon is one of the most popular affiliate programs on the internet. Amazon Associate was the first and also one of the largest affiliate programs in the world.
It has over 12 million products, from physical products to digital products.
Does It Cost Money To Become An Amazon Affiliate Program?
No, it doesn’t cost you any money. You can become an affiliate of Amazon for free and start promoting their product that falls within your niche and start earning some income for yourself.
What I Don’t Like About Amazon:
The commission they pay to their affiliate is relatively low, 4-8% per product sale.
The only way you can earn a high commission is when you promote things like TV, Fridge, Laptop, etc. in fact promoting such things doesn’t sell fast.
Another thing is that they offer a short cookie lifetime.
OVERVIEW!
Above are some of the best affiliate programs to join.
- If you want my #1 recommended program to learn step-by-step how to build a 6-figure affiliate marketing business. Check my resource page.
This program offers a high commission rate, meaning, no more small commissions. They are a team that does the high ticket selling for you.
Also, they offer one-on-one coaches who work directly with you to make sure you’re on the right path.
Recurring Commission Affiliate Programs:
In my opinion, I think recurring commission types of affiliate programs are by far one of the best affiliate programs to promote.
Who doesn’t want to put in the work once and start earning lifetime income month after month without having to do anything again?
That said…
Let’s take a look at some of the best monthly recurring income affiliate programs.
7. Clickfunnels Affiliate Program
If you’re an affiliate marketer or someone who runs an online business, I’m pretty sure you have heard of Clickfunnels before.
A Quick Brief About ClickFunnel:
Clickfunnels is the leading sales funnel builder in the sales funnel industry.
It was purposely made to help business owners build a sales funnel, increase their conversion rate, and make more money from their business.
The main goal of Clickfunnels is to help its users make money from their business and save time and energy.
That said…
Setting up an account with Clickfunnel is relatively easy and you don’t have to do any technical stuff.
Clickfunnel comes with amazing features such as:
- Drag and drop page builder
- Already Made templates
- A/B Testing
- WordPress Plugins
- Affiliate Management
- Visitors Tracking
- E-mail Integration & Notification
- Custom Landing Pages With Customizable Templates, etc.
Clickfunnel Affiliate Program:
Clickfunnels Affiliate Program is one of the best and most generous recurring programs on the internet. They pay a 40% lifetime recurring commission for all purchases you make.
They have a 30-day cookie lifetime set for commission.
This keeps the customers you refer to attached to your affiliate account and after 30 days the cookie expires.
If the customer purchases the product before the 30 days are over, you’ll still get paid a commission.
That said…
Clickfunnel also comes up with new products more often that you can promote and earn additional income.
Here are some Clickfunnel product line-ups and how much you can earn from promoting each of them:
| Clickfunnels Products | Potential Earning/CPA |
| One Funnel Away | $100 |
| DotCom Secrets Book | $311.00 |
| Expert Secrets Book | $311.00 |
| Traffic Secrets Book | $311.00 |
| Funnel Challenge | $100.00 |
| 30 Days Submit | $100.00 |
| 5-Day Lead Challenge | $100.00 |
| DotCom Secrets Summit | $193.40 |
| Your First Funnel | $1,248.40 |
Also, one amazing thing about Clickfunnel affiliate programs is that, once you have referred 100 active paying members, they’ll pay you $500 per month.
And with 200 active members, you will receive $1,000 a month in commission and they will also cover the lease of your dream car.
8. SEMrush Affiliate Program
SEMrush is an SEO tool that helps businesses and individuals optimize their websites for higher search engine ranking, PPC, etc.
It also helps you with your content plan and marketing strategy.
Also, it provides you with interesting information on how to rank on a search engine.
If you run an online business and want to take it to the next level, SEMrush is your best stop.
SEMrush also comes with amazing features such as:
- Organic Research – Ranking on the first page of search engines can be a bit challenging if you don’t target the right keyword. SEMrush will help you find the right keywords that your website can rank for, it also shows the competition level of that keyword.
- Advertising Research – Investing in paid ads is very expensive, so it’s important you keep an eye on what your competitors are doing and what’s working for them before investing your hard-earned money into paid ads. SEMrush will show you all the necessary data on what’s working and what’s not.
- Broken Link Checker – Having broken links on your site can sometimes affect your traffic growth. It’s important you keep your eye on that. SEMrush tool will help spot all the broken links on your site in a minute and how to get them fixed.
- Website Audit – With the SEMrush website audit tool, you’ll be able to check how your website is performing and the part of your site that’s having an impact on your SEO and search ranking, and how to fix them.
- Backlinks Analyzer – Do you know getting quality backlinks from other high-quality websites in your niche can help boost your site ranking? To know which website links to your site, you can use the SEMrush backlink analyzer tool which will give you all the information about a particular site that links to you.
SEMrush Affiliate Program:
As an affiliate of the SEMrush affiliate program, you’ll earn $200 for every referral, $10 for every new lead, and an awesome 40% recurring commission every single month.
9. Getresponse Affiliate Program
Getresponse is an amazing all-in-one email marketing service. It’s one of the best email service providers in the world.
GetResponse offers you all the necessary tools you need to run successful email marketing.
If you are an online entrepreneur and looking for automated marketing software, I highly recommend you try GetResponse.
GetResponse comes with a free plan.
Getresponse is loaded with tons of amazing features such as:
- Integrations
- Customer Relationships Management (CRM)
- Webinar hosting
- Sales Tracking
- A/B Testing
- Custom Landing Pages
- Video Email Marketing, etc
GetResponse Affiliate Program:
Getresponse has two affiliate plans: A one-time income affiliate program (which is also called the Bunty affiliate program) and a recurring commission program.
Let’s take a look at each of them individually.
- GetResponse One-Time Affiliate Program: With a one-time referral program, you’ll earn $100 one-time income per every referral, and this type of payment is not repeated unless you get another referral.
Recurring Income program: With this one, you’ll receive 33% every single month for every member you refer into the system as long as they remain a paid member.
GetResponse has payment plans such as “Basic, Plus, and Professional Enterprise.
And anytime your referral upgrades their account your commission increases as well.
Benefit Of Promoting GetResponse As An Affiliate:
Join Getresponse as an affiliate, you’ll be provided with tools and training to help you boost your income faster.
10. LeadPage Affiliate Program
LeadPage is one of the best and leading landing page builders out there on the internet.
They offer you tools that allow you to build your email list and send out a broadcast email to your list to drive more sales and revenue into your business.
Leadpage also comes with already-made landing pages that really convert.
Leadpage comes with amazing tools such as:
- Drag and Drop Page Builder
- Unlimited Pop-up
- Alert Bars
- Websites Builder
- SEO Capability… etc
LeadPage Affiliate Program
The LeadPage affiliate program allows you to earn a 50% recurring commission for all sales you generate as long as the member you refer remains a customer with them.
OVERVIEW!
The above-mentioned are some of the best affiliate programs to join. But make sure you do your own research before taking any further steps.
Let’s quickly look at some differences between choosing a single and recurring commission program.
The Differences Between Single And Recurring Commission Affiliate Programs:
| Recurring Commission | Single Commission |
| Revenue is predictable | Revenue is not predictable |
| Revenue can be relied on | It can not be relied on |
| It’s a long-term income | it’s a short-term income |
| It comes on a regular basis | It does not come on a regular basis |
Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing Or Joining An Affiliate Program
Here Are Some Of The Mistakes To Avoid When Joining Affiliate Programs:
Avoid Low Ticket Items
If you plan on making a living off affiliate marketing or probably want to quit your day job, then you should switch from promoting low-ticket products to high-ticket products.
Promoting high-ticket items can help you increase income faster than promoting low-ticket items.
I’m not saying promoting low-ticket items is bad, it’s good, but it will take you thousands of sales before making any significant income.
But one sale of high-ticket items can generate you a reasonable amount of income and boost your revenue.
I know some of you’ll think promoting a high-ticket affiliate item is going to take a lot more effort than promoting a low-ticket item.
And most people will not buy it.
Nope! That’s not true.
The same amount of work, effort, and time it takes to promote low-ticket items, is the same amount of work it takes to sell high ticket items.
And there are people out there that are richer than you and I and are willing to take out their credit cards…
And purchase high ticket items simply because they want to better their lives and they believe high ticket items have more value than low ticket items.
Promote High In-demand Product
If you don’t promote a product that the marketplace is in need of, it will be very hard to sell that product successfully…
And what does that mean? Failure and frustration.
So…
The best thing to do is first to run thorough research to see what the market is actually in need of and provide them with exactly that.
Don’t promote anything that the market has no interest in.
The DISADVANTAGES OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
In this section, let’s take a look at some disadvantages of joining an affiliate program.
You Don’t Have Control Over The Affiliate Program
Affiliate marketing can make you rich when done right. But one amazing thing is that the company whose product you build your affiliate business around isn’t yours.
So, you don’t have absolute control over the product or service and they can get you removed or blocked anytime especially when you violate their terms of use.
You Can Easily Lose Your Commission
There are a ton of scammers out there online stealing people’s commissions.
There are cases where your affiliate link gets hijacked by scammers and all your commission can be stolen.
And there are some programs that can deliberately run away with your commission after you have successfully sold their product for them.
It’s important you carefully do thorough research when choosing any affiliate program.
You Can’t Build Loyal Customers
Building a customer base can allow you to make more money from the same customer over and over again but when you’re promoting someone else’s product you may not be able to do so.
Once you send a customer to the vendor website, that customer may not buy anything from you again.
However,
The only way to avoid this is to build an email list by first capturing the customer’s email address before sending them to the product sale page.
This way, you have a chance to sell different products to them.
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Wrapping Up!
An Affiliate program acts as an intermediary between affiliate marketers (publishers) who sell products or services created by a merchant.
A merchant is a person or a company that creates the affiliate program and allows affiliates to promote it for a commission.
The merchant is responsible for reporting, tracking, payment and refund processing, and affiliate management.
The job of the affiliate is simply to promote the product.
Promoting affiliate programs is a great way to build a profitable online business and also increase your marketing skills.
There You Have It Folks On What Is An Affiliate Program And How An Affiliate Program Work.
READ ALSO:
- Does Affiliate Marketing Still Work
