Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

The Best Affiliate Programs For Affiliate Marketing

What is An Affiliate Program?

Simply put, an affiliate program is an agreement in which the company running the program is incentivizing another business or influencer. (the “affiliate”) To send them referral traffic in exchange for commission payouts. Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

It is one of the most common ways for brands to extend their reach and attract new customers because of the full alignment of incentives between merchants and affiliates.

Most of the companies allow you to sign up for the affiliate program straight from their website.

Usually when a company has an affiliate program you can find a link to it within their website footer.

This link could send you directly to the sign up page for the program on the specific affiliate network. They run on or an initial landing page diving into more detail about becoming an affiliate for that merchant.

What to Look For in High Paying Affiliate Programs?

By now you should know that not all affiliate programs are equal. Some niches pay more than others.

But, choosing which programs are worth your time can be tricky especially when you’re just starting out!

So, we’re going to explore nine all-important things to look out for when choosing high ticket affiliate programs.

That’s what you should look for in high paying affiliate programs:

1. Commission Rate: Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

The commission rate is imperative. Different programs offer different rates of commission.

This is usually a percentage of the sale price, but in some instances, your commission is a fixed rate per affiliate sale.

So, double-check how the affiliate program calculates its commission to get a better feel for what you’ll earn with the program.

The higher the rate of affiliate commission, the better.

It’s also worth seeing whether the program offers incentives for newbie affiliates. For instance, do they reward hitting sales targets with a boost in commission?

LambdaTest is an excellent example of this in action; they’re offering newbies 50% commission on their first transaction and then 25% after that.

If you’re looking to get into a niche with plenty of high paying affiliate programs offering attractive rates of commission. Generally speaking, you can’t go wrong with SaaS (Software as a Service).

Typically, due to their subscription-based nature, SaaS companies boast higher customer lifetime values (CLTV) and profit margins and, consequently, impressive affiliate commission rates.

So, if this is a niche that interests you, go for it, it could be incredibly lucrative!

Take BigCommerce as an example. You’ll receive a 200% bounty per referral! You’ll also earn $1,500 for every Enterprise customer you secure.

Plus, there are no commission caps, obligations, or minimum commitments – what’s not to love about that?!

While we’re on the subject of commission, remember retailers have full control over their affiliate programs.

They can, therefore, reduce their high commission rates at any time. Take Amazon as an example, who announced in April it was slashing commission rates on some of its physical products.

Amazon was paying 8% on home improvement products, which is now down to 3%, while groceries have plummeted from 5% to only 1%! When you hear of horror stories like this. It makes selling digital products all the more attractive

2. Commission Type: Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

On the whole, there are two types of commission:

One-time payouts
Recurring commission

The one-time model does what it says on the tin, i.e., when you make a sale. You’ll be paid a one-off commission for that sale. So, the more referrals you get, the more you earn.

Whereas, over the long-term, the recurring commission model enables you to earn a passive income.

Typically this commission structure comes into play when companies offer monthly subscriptions for SaaS products, online courses, digital merchandise, etc.

So, how does this work?

Say, the high paying affiliate program you’ve signed up for is a SaaS website building platform, and you’ve just secured a sale.

In this event, the company doesn’t just pay a one-off commission, instead, (provided the customer doesn’t cancel their subscription), the affiliate program also pays you monthly (or whenever the subscription rolls over).

Speaking of different commission structures. What Cloudways has to offer is pretty impressive, as they give you the freedom to choose a commission structure that best suits your needs.

Their slab model outlines four performance-based ‘slabs’ that correspond with different commission rates. Please refer to the table below for more details:

Sign Up For Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

Affiliate Marketplaces

(A place to sign up for multiple affiliate programs and manage them in 1 place).

ShareASale (recommended) – WP Engine, StudioPress, WP Rocket. Easy to get approved, create links, track stats, with a wide rank of affiliates.
ClickBank – LongTail Pro, SeoPressor.
CJ Affiliate – Overstock, GoDaddy, Zappos, Walgreen, Vitamin Shoppe, Verizon Wireless, Under Armour, TurboTax, TJ Maxx, Sears, Samsung, QVC, Priceline, Petco, Old Navy, Office Depot, Office Max, Nike, Newegg, Michael Kors, Intuit, Hotels.com, HelloFresh, Guitar Center, GNC, FedEx Office, AT&T, American Express, Vivid Seats, TeamViewer, Sunglass Hut, Ally Invest, more.
Rakuten Marketing – Udemy, Walmart, Macy’s, StubHub, Hulu, more.
Impact – ADP, Airbnb, AppSumo, Allstate, 1-800 Flowers, Avon, Constant Contact, Credit Karma Tax, Envato Market, ESPN+, Getty Images, Gravity Forms, Grubhub, Houzz, HostGator, InMotion, iQ, iStock, Kind, Kohl’s, Lending Club, Levi’s, LinkedIn Learning, Namecheap, Shutterstock, Southwest, Squarespace, StackPath CDN, Target, Turo, Uber, Uber Eats, Xfinity, more.
FlexOffers – Apple Music, Amore Beds, Mac Cosmetics, Wine Of The Month Club, DirectTV, Sketchers, Barnes & Noble, GameStop, SkyScanner.

Popular Online Retailers: Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

Newegg – 0.5 – 1%.
Overstock – up to 6%.
Amazon – up to 10% based on category.
Ebay – 40 – 80% based on category (but only 24 hour cookie tracking).
Etsy – 4 – 8%.
Target – 4% on most categories.
Walmart – 4% on most categories.
Aliexpress – 3% for electronics, 7-9% for everything else.

WordPress Hosting – Sign Up For Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

Bluehost
SiteGround – $50 – $100+/sale (tier program).
WP Engine – $200/sale + bonuses + $50 two-tier program.
Kinsta – $50 – $500/sale + 10% recurring.
Cloudways – $50 – $125/sale (tiered) or recurring revenues with lower initial commission – they were also #1 in many Facebook polls, have a very strong following, and I will be recommending them soon for managed cloud hosting

WordPress Themes: Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

StudioPress – 35% (usually on a $100 sale).
Elegant Themes – 50% on plans ranging from $89 – $250.

Email Marketing

AWeber – 30% recurring (on $19 – $149+ per sale).
Constant Contact – $105 per sale and $5 per lead (signs up for free trial).

Other Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

SEMrush – 40% recurring (on $40 – $160/month).
StackPath CDN – usually $10 – $20 commission per sale.
MyThemeShop – 55% ($48 commission – $244 depending on plan).
ThemeForest – 30% of each new person’s first purchase.
WP Rocket – 20% ($10 – $50/sale).
Freelancer – fee of the project for first 100 days (usually 10% of the project).
Udemy – 20% on any course.
Refer WordPress – 20% for wordpress.com, JetPack, and WooCommerce.
OptiMonster – 20%.
LongTail Pro – 30% (and 30% recurring) on $219/year – $377/year plans.
Elementor – 50% of $49 – $199 depending on plan.
HelloFresh – $25 (maximum) on first sale.

The Best Affiliate Networks? Marketing Programs For Bloggers

Now that you know what to look for when choosing a network. Here are our picks for the best affiliate networks to join this year.

1. Impact

Impact is one of the younger affiliate networks on this list. The company was founded in 2008 by former employees of Commission Junction, Savings.com, and Leadpoint.

At the time of writing, there are more than 1,000 merchants in Impact’s network. As with Commission Junction, there’s a diverse array of merchants that should fit most verticals.

The application process to join Impact can be a little bit harder than it is for CJ, but once in, I’ve found it easier to get accepted by the merchants.

We think Impact’s reporting and postback options are much more flexible than those with the other affiliate programs. If a merchant uses multiple affiliate networks (which is common), we always use Impact first.

2. CJ by Conversant

CJ by Conversant (formerly Commission Junction) is an affiliate network that has been in the industry for 20 years.

They process an incredible $15 billion in annual sales through their platform, with $1.8 billion paid out annually to their affiliates.

If you’re looking to partner with some of the world’s biggest brands, becoming a CJ affiliate is a great choice.

Brands like Overstock, Priceline, GoPro, Lowes, and Office Depot are just some of the merchants you can partner with on CJ.

On the publisher’s side, they partner with huge brands like CNN, Time, Digg, and Buzzfeed.

With this stiff competition, one drawback is that it can be difficult for new affiliates to get approved to work with larger merchants. You’ll have to get creative with your email outreach to work with them.

However, with their free and easy set-up, excellent real-time reporting, and reliable monthly payments, CJ is a great platform to join.

If you are a seasoned affiliate and want to work with some of the world’s largest brands, join CJ by Conversant (formerly Commission Junction)

3. Shareasale: Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

Shareasale is a massive affiliate network with over 3,900 merchants and 1 million+ affiliates.

They’ve been in business for 19 years and are a leader in the industry. Some of their top verticals to promote include fashion, home and garden, food and drink, and B2B. But there are plenty more.

Additionally, they provide great features, including affiliate marketing classes, training webinars, merchant recommendations, and marketing tools to help you grow your revenue.

Their platform is also reliable on the technology front. Specifically, the Shareasale platform provides easy access to affiliate links, reporting tools, and pride themselves on transparency, speed, efficiency, and accuracy.

If you’re just starting and want to get your toes wet in affiliate marketing and promote primarily consumer brands, we recommend you join Shareasale as an affiliate first.

And if you’re a merchant looking for affiliates to promote your products, you can sign up as a merchant.

4. PartnerStack

If you’re promoting software, especially in the B2B space, you’ll surely love PartnerStack.

Once you get your affiliate account you can promote software products across different categories like sales, marketing, accounting, development, productivity, social media, etc.

As an affiliate of PartnerStack, we can tell that it has one of the most enjoyable interfaces that we’ve ever encountered with any affiliate marketplace.

There is a threshold of $25.00 for you to withdraw the commissions you have earned on the platform and the money can be transferred either via PayPal or Stripe directly to your bank account.

The only downside of PartnerStack we’ve noticed so far is a fairly limited number of software providers on their platform but we’re sure that it will grow significantly over time.

Best Retail Affiliate Programs For Bloggers

1. Amazon Associates

Who hasn’t heard of Amazon? This platform is a giant in the eCommerce world, and its popularity continues to grow.

So, if you ever talk about products that could potentially be for sale somewhere on Amazon. Then it makes sense for you to join Amazon Associates to begin collecting (small) commissions on the products people purchase after following your Amazon affiliate links.

Commission Rate: Varies between 1.0% and 10.0% depending on the product category. You can learn more about Amazon’s standard commission rates here.

Cookie Life: 24 hours (90 days if a referral adds a product to their shopping cart during a session you refer)

Pros:

Easy sign-up
Access to nearly unlimited products you can promote
Payments can be made by direct bank deposit, Amazon gift card or check

Cons:

Low commission structure that makes it challenging to earn significant payouts without sending a high volume of traffic their way
Affiliates only have a 24-hour window to earn a commission after someone clicks on their affiliate link

2. Walmart: Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

Walmart is the largest retail corporation in the US that operates multiple state-wide supercenters. It also offers extended eCommerce services to gain a larger share in the growing digital industry.

The Walmart affiliate program helps incentivize you when someone clicks your link that redirects them to the Walmart website.

Commission Rate: 1% for many products

Cookie Life: 3 days

Pros:

Deep linking is a available option
Free professionally designed banners
Better cookie life compared to Amazon’s 24-hour cookie life

Cons:

Very low commission rates for most products
Some tools inside are outdated and unintuitive
Can’t earn for many products — Apple products, personal care, precious metals etc.

3. eBay

eBay has been around since the dawn of time. OK so that’s not true, but as far as the internet goes, they’ve had a long run.

Their listings include almost anything a buyer could ask for from long-forgotten vintage memorabilia to brand new merchandise.

With a name as well-known as eBay, a high conversion rate is guaranteed with their affiliate programs.

Commission Rate: 50-70% of eBay’s revenue share. New or reactivated eBay users double the commission rate.

For example, if eBay’s revenue share is $10, the affiliate will make $5-$7. If the person purchasing the item is new to eBay, the affiliate will make $10 – $14 on the sale

Cookie Life: 24 hours

Pros:

Free to use
Earn commission on any listing—including your own

Cons:

Short cookie life
Low commission rate per sale
Some of the information about the affiliate program is outdated on the site. For instance, under the FAQ’s section, they list a different commission rate system than they do on their main partnering page
Blog posts and pages will have to be updated frequently for auction items listed on eBay

Best Travel Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

From hotels and travel platforms like Expedia to airlines and vacation packages. People are buying travel packages online more than ever before – so why not cash in?

Let’s say you’re a travel blogger with an audience of loyal readers.

You can recommend hotels, travel packages, airlines, and travel equipment from travel affiliate companies and get a referral fee from each sale.

There are also a lot of customization options. You can integrate hotel booking sites into your website, choose specific destinations, and showcase properties that interest you.

For example, you could start a niche affiliate site about “Area Family Vacations,” write content about the top things to do in wherever you live, guides about the local area, and promote specific hotels.

Travel review sites with links to specific vacations and hotels are a fun way to create a unique experience for your readers and offer an endless supply of customizable options.

Commissions are either paid at booking or when a visitor checks out of their hotel.

Here are our top picks for the travel affiliate programs:

1. TravelPayouts

Travelpayouts calls themselves “The Ideal Travel Program to Monetize Your Travel Website”, and we have to agree.

They cover a wide range of services and integrate other travel platforms like Booking.com, Airbnb, rentalcars.com, and more.

Their travel affiliate marketing platform offers up to an 80% commission, but the average is 1.6% for flights and 6% for hotel bookings. Their cookie duration is 30 days.

2. Booking.com

Booking.com offers flights, hotels, car rentals, and airport taxis.

By joining, you get access to over 2.2 million properties, and they offer 4%, but there is a downside as the cookie expires when a user closes their browser.

3. TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is a popular travel site that’s primarily known for its local reviews of things to do.

They also allow you to book hotels, vacation packages, restaurant reservations, and more.

They offer an incredible 50% commission with a decent cookie duration of 14 days. Based on their referral fees, they are our #1 choice for the best in the travel category.

4. Expedia

Expedia is a major global travel brand that is the parent company of others on this list. They allow their affiliates to promote over 260,000 bookable properties with 150 websites in 70+ countries. Based on their website reach and network of properties, they are #2 on our list.

5. Hotels.com

Hotels.com is another way to make money with hotels and they offer localized services with 85 websites in 35 languages. They also have over 15 million members in their rewards program. They offer 4% and 7-day cookie duration.

6. Travelocity

Travelocity is a travel platform known for its price match guarantee and affordable prices. They offer a 2-4% commission and extend a generous 45-day cookie length.

7. Hilton

Hilton is a global hotel brand that offers luxury hotel stays and a wide range of hotel properties. They offer a 4% commission, and their cookie length is seven days.

8. Marriott

Marriott is another hotel brand offering a large selection of hotels to promote in their program. They offer 3% for vacation packages and 4-6% for hotels. They provide a cookie length of 7 days.

9. Priceline

Priceline is known for their cheap deals on hotels, flights, and more. They offer a 3-5% commission and a 30-day cookie duration.

10. Hotwire

Hotwire offers last minute travel deals and access to cheap flights and hotels. They provide 2% with a 7-day cookie.

Best WordPress Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. Monster Insights

Monster Insights is a powerful and user-friendly Google Analytics plugin for WordPress sites. It’s also the most powerful Google Analytics plugin you can find anywhere, sitting at around 3 million active installations.

This plugin helps you track and see how your website is performing with its cutting-edge features. This includes real-time stats, universal tracking, page-level analytics, and enhanced eCommerce tracking.

Commission Rate: 20% commission on every sale.

Cookie Life: Undisclosed

Pros:

Clear commission structure visible to you on the page
Plenty of payment options, including ACH, wire transfer, and check.

Cons:

Must have a minimum of 37 days of activity in profile to earn a commission.
Monthly payment structure

2. Elementor

Elementor is known for its extremely useful WordPress page builder. The Elementor page builder allows users to use drag and drop features in WordPress.

It also gives the user the opportunity to see what their pages and blog posts look like before hitting “publish.”

Elementor offers a free version of their page builder, but the paid versions include advanced widgets, a theme builder, a popup builder, a WooCommerce builder, and many other features.

Commission Rate: 50% per sale

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

Free to use
No limit on what you can make
Variety of logos and banners to choose from

Cons:

Must meet a $200 threshold to be paid
Shorter cookie life than some programs
Must wait 30+ days to receive a payment

3. OptinMonster

OptinMonster generates more leads, subscribers, and sales for you straight from your website’s traffic.

Over 1.2 million websites use OptinMonster for lead generation, including big names like Patreon, McAfee, and Pinterest.

They do this by providing subscribers ready-made templates, personalized targeting for automation, and split testing to find the best way to maximize conversions.

Commission Rate: 20% commission on every sale from the referral link — up to $118 per sale.

Cookie Life: Undisclosed

Pros:

Earn a minimum of $21.60 per sale to $118 per sale
Plenty of payment options, including ACH, wire transfer, and check.

Cons:

Must have a minimum of 37 days of activity in profile to earn a commission.
Monthly payment once you reach the payment threshold of $100

4. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a performance-optimizing and caching plugin that improves your WordPress site by speeding up loading times.

There are countless free and paid WordPress caching plugins for you to choose from. But WP Rocket is known to have the best user-friendliness and the most helpful features out there, like Lazy Load.

It also has database optimization for your website to be fast and light.

Commission Rate: Affiliates earn 20% commission per sale.

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

Can receive frequent promotions before publishing campaigns.
Contact an in-house affiliate team for personalized tips and best practices
Gain access to an affiliate kit — including logos, screenshots, text links, and banners for your site.

Cons:

Alter your creatives when marketing WP Rocket
Can’t market on deals and coupons websites.

5. Elegant Themes

Themes: Elegant Themes has 87 unique and beautiful themes available to customers to choose from. Each is designed by expert programmers looking to give you not only an engaging and dynamic website but also an easy to use interface from the back end with different drag and drop page builder options.
Plugins: Although Elegant Themes specialty is in creating beautiful themes, the great thing is that they offer users with incredible plugins to compliment those themes and make them even greater! Some of their best plugins include the Divi Builder which allows you the ability to drag and drop pieces on your website to make building your page so much easier. There are email opt in plugins, and amazing social media sharing plugins to help users find you and share your posts even easier

Commission Rate: 50% lifetime reoccurring commission

Cookie Life: 6 months

Pros:

Very generous cookie life
50% lifetime reoccurring commission is by far the best part of Elegant Themes.
There is a great support system including live-chat 24 hours a day and a user-friendly interface both from the customer perspective and also from the affiliate portal perspective.

Best Web Hosting Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

Web hosting is probably the most popular affiliate marketing category out there. Every site, however big or small, needs hosting.

Therefore, pretty much every affiliate writing about digital marketing, blogging, or online business will likely end up promoting web hosting services first.

When it comes to picking the best web hosting affiliate program, you have to be careful. Don’t just choose the one that offers the highest commission; pick the one that is fast, reliable, and well known for its high-quality support.

Additionally, since people rarely move from one hosting provider to another, the customer retention rates remain at very high levels.

As a result, merchants often offer attractive commissions on promoted plans making web hosting niche a highly lucrative one for the affiliates.

Ultimately, thanks to the essential nature paired with high commissions, web hosting companies provide some of the best affiliate programs, which is why we placed them at the top of our list.

Here are our top picks for the web hosting affiliate programs:

1. Bluehost

Commission Rate: $65/sale for starters. Commission rate increases up to $130/sale based on the volume of referred sales.

Cookie Life: 60 days

Bluehost is one of the world’s 20 largest web hosting companies, jointly hosting over 2 million domains with its sister companies, HostGator, Page, and FastDomain.

The Bluehost affiliate program is top-rated in the web hosting niche. With their plans starting at as low as $2.95/month and one-time payouts starting at $65+, you’ll enjoy high conversion rates and commissions.

The company has paid out more than $5 million in commissions in 2019 alone, making it one of the most handsomely paying affiliate programs in the web hosting space.

Pros:

Free to join
Fast 2min sign-up
No cap on earnings
Wide range of promotional resources
Very responsive affiliate support team
High one-time payouts starting at $65

Cons:

You have to be approved to join the affiliate program.
Payment processing takes between 45-60 days after the sale was made.

2. Hostinger

Hostinger is another popular web hosting platform that can offer affiliates up to $150 per sale on a tiered pricing structure.

Their affiliate partner program offers a base payout of around $60, with the opportunity to make up to $150.

And since their small business and WordPress plans have a 90% discount and start at $0.99/month, they boast excellent conversion rates.

Like many other web hosts, they provide banners and promotional tools to help new affiliates get started. Finally, there are no payment caps, and you can send unlimited referrals.

Commission Rate: Minimum commission rate of 60%

Cookie Life: Info not provided

Pros:

Instant sign up
High conversion rate
Affiliate control panel
Minimum of 60% commission
Many different banners to choose from

Cons:

Very little information is provided before signing up

3. Hostgator

HostGator is a well-established shared web hosting provider, hosting over 8 million websites on their servers. It offers an attractive, flexible commissions structure, co-branded landing pages, and various special offers.

Commission Rate: Starting at $65 for the first 1-5 sales and increases as more purchases are made up to $100.

You can choose between a performance-based or a hybrid commission model that additionally offers small recurring payments.

Cookie Life: 60 days

Pros:

Free to join
High commission rates
High conversion rate
Dedicated affiliate account manager
Can create custom coupon codes for customers
Access to marketing tools like banners, email templates, etc.

Cons:

Lengthy wait for payouts
Requires approval and some initial of traffic

4. Cloudways

Cloudways is a managed hosting platform focused on providing high-performance services to growing teams and smaller businesses.

The Cloudways’ affiliate program offers two attractive commission structures allowing the affiliate to customize payout based on personal preferences.

Commission Rate: Cloudways offers two commission pathways.

Affiliates can choose between larger, fixed one-time starting at $50/sale up to 150$ depending on sales volumes and “hybrid” option, which includes a $30 commission for the sale plus a 7% lifetime commission.

Cookie Life: 90 days

Pros:

Long cookie window
Affiliate support managers
High commission payments
Two options for payouts (one-time & hybrid)
Tracking dashboard to monitor visitors and purchases

Cons:

Must make at least $250 to get the payment

Best SEO Tools Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. Serpstat

This affiliate program can be extremely beneficial to Serpstat subscribers. For affiliates who want to pay for the paid plan from their affiliate program’s earnings. Serpstat multiplies the money in their accounts by 1.5.

Cookie Life: No info provided

Commission: Up to 30% commission per first and recurring sales.

The more people you refer, the higher your commissions will be. Here are 4 tiers of the Serpstat affiliate program:

1-2 payment – 5% commission;
3-9 payments – 10% commission;
10-19 payments – 20% commission;
20 payments and more – 30% commission.

Affiliates can withdraw their money via Webmoney or PayPal.

Pros:

Recurring payment scheme
The more payments, the higher your cut (up to 30%)

Cons:

Once a month payment release
Minimum payout threshold of $50
Need to sign up to browse the affiliate page

2. SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a leading cloud-based SEO software like SEMRush or Serpstat. The platform allows the user to track keyword rankings, run site audits, analyze traffic, monitor backlinks, and much more.

Coming to SE Ranking affiliate program, you can earn unlimited recurring income by referring customers. Thanks to the 14-day free trial, affiliate conversions remain at relatively high levels.

Commission: 30% lifetime commission.

Cookie Life: 120 days

Pros:

Twice a month payout
Track statistics of sales and transactions
Three payment methods: Paypal, Webmoney, and SE Ranking balance

Cons:

Minimum payment threshold of $50
Can’t advertise via paid advertisements

3. Grammarly

Grammarly is maybe not an SEO tool per se but it’s one of the best grammar and punctuation checker tools out there, making it a crucial tool to rank well.

And it has a very lucrative affiliate as well which pays a decent referral income for every lead you send them.

If you’re looking for the best cost per action (CPA) or pay per lead affiliate program for your blog that converts well, the Grammarly referral program is your thing.

Commission Rate: 14% or flat $20 per sale commission ($50 minimum payout)

Cookie Life: 90 days

Pros:

$0.20 for every free signup
$20 for free to a premium subscription
Payment is made through bank transfer or check
If you make over $2000 affiliating through Grammarly, make $200 more!

Cons:

Not the highest payout scheme per referral SEO tool
The minimum monthly payout threshold is $50 (or 3 subscriptions)

4. SemRush

SEMrush is a trusted source for SEO tools that help online businesses and marketers with their keyword research, tracking and search engine optimization.

The tools offered by SEMrush come highly recommended for improving the ranking of your website by doing more effective keyword research.

Their affiliate program is a great option for bloggers to earn a recurring income via BeRush (SEMRush’s exclusive affiliate program).

Commission Rate: 40%

Cookie Life: 10 years

Pros:

Variety of promo materials in 7 languages
Commission payments made up to twice a month
Exclusive promotional rights to one of the world’s leading competitive intelligence services
Each month the BeRush team runs the BeRush Contest where participants can win up to $100 for the best content

Cons:

Account balance needs to reach $50 or more to get paid
No payments are made for referring existing or returning SEMrush users

Best Email Marketing Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. Convertkit

ConvertKit is one of the hottest email marketing providers that offer automation capabilities developed specifically for bloggers & creatives.

The subscription-based service is focused on bloggers, small businesses. Podcasters who are looking to simplify their email marketing process.

ConvertKit simplifies the process of capturing more leads and selling more of your products.

Commission Rate: Recurring 30% commission for the lifetime of each customer you refer (paid monthly)

Cookie Life: 60 days

Pros:

No threshold to meet in order to get paid
30% monthly recurring commission (this is huge)
Personalized overview dashboard gives you all the details on your earnings

Cons:

30-day delay on commission payments

2. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a leader when it comes to email marketing. These days email marketing is essential for bloggers, social media influencers or affiliate marketers.

Constant Contact helps you to create using beautiful templates, share with your list and track real-time stats.

The best part about Constant Contact is that also allows you to earn a decent amount via their affiliate program.

Commission Rate: Payouts start at $5 for every customer who signed up for a free 60 days trial.

You also get $105 commission from a direct paying customers. If the free trial customer upgrades subscription, then you are eligible to receive an additional $105.

Cookie Life: 90 days

Pros:

Track referrals to see how much commission you’ll earn
Provided with market-tested assets for ads and banners
Personalized support and advice from support specialists

Cons:

Strict disclosure requirements and authentic reviews
Monthly payment scheme through check wire or Wise
Payment could take up to 90 days because of the return policy

3. Active Campaign

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing automation and CRM tool that has been around since 2003.

However, it has made a name for itself over the last few years mainly on the back of its highly impressive marketing automation features.

Active Campaign serves any business that deals in the online landscape—namely eCommerce stores, B2C companies, and B2B companies.

With easy targeted messages and newsletters sent out on each campaign, Active Campaign is one of the most reliant email marketing platforms out there.

Commission Rate: Starting at 20% and increasing up to 30% recurring commission on referrals.

Cookie Life: No info provided

Pros:

Immediately gain a link upon sign up and use it
A clean dashboard to track conversions and progress
Evergreen affiliate webinars to help you set up a funnel

Cons:

Only earn commission from paid accounts
Commissions don’t get released until after 60 days have passed

Investing & Trading Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. eToro

eToro Partners is the highly lucrative and diverse affiliate program of the most popular social trading platform, eToro.

The eToro investment network has over 5 million registered users from over 140 countries and is quickly growing.

eToro allows their users to connect like never before by allowing them to communicate and post through their social trading platform.

View other users trading statistics, discuss trading strategies, and automatically copy other traders with eToro’s patented CopyTrader technology.

There’s no wonder why eToro is the worlds leading social trading platform and the platform is gaining new users every day.

eToro’s extensive growth is due to not only their amazing investment and copy trading services. But the highly lucrative affiliate program, eToro Partners.

eToro Partners is one of the most successful financial affiliate programs in the world with over 50,000,000 paid affiliates.

With a network as vast and successful as eToro’s, it’s easy to convert and acquire new traders to the eToro platform.

Commission Rate: Up to $200 CPA, 25% Revenue Share

Cookie Life: 45 Days

Pros:

High conversions
Very lucrative commission plans
Excellent reporting and tracking software
Promote the leading social trading platform

Cons:

Takes some time to build up your following

2. Binance

Binance is the world-leading cryptocurrency and digital goods exchange platform. It boasts the largest trade volume per day among other cryptocurrencies.

Its service includes trading and purchasing cryptocurrencies, securities, futures, savings, lendings, and digital wallets.

Purchasing cryptocurrencies can be facilitated with onsite P2P services and through the Binance Spot market.

Commission Rate: 20% of referral’s trade fees, 40% if holding 500+ BNB, paid in real-time to Binance account.

Cookie Life: 90 days

Pros:

World’s most reputable cryptocurrency exchange site
Real time transfer of referral commission on purchase

Cons:

Reduced its commission rate by 20% from when it first started out
Need community of over 500 members or social page with over 5,000 followers

3. Coinbase

Coinbase is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange that allows its users to trade with the major currencies.

This includes Ethereum, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Cardano. It runs across multiple devices and has features that allow you to manage your portfolio with utmost security.

Best of all, it has an affiliate program that earns you commissions for inviting a friend to join in through a link.

Commission Rate: 10% Commission when user buys

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

You have deep linking permissions
Full-time affiliate manager to help you
Creative assets and banners are provided

Cons:

Less than 20% get accepted to the program
Recurring payment only lasts three months
Coinbase’s reputation is treading downhill due to rejecting social activism

4. Plus500

Plus 500 is an international firm providing online trading services. It is an online service that allows people all over the world to trade online.

It was founded in 2008. The firm has its headquarters in Israel. The platform was initially based on Windows OS but the firm has gone on to release web and Android based platform for its users.

Commission Rate: Up to $800 CPA for a trader

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

Guaranteed an affiliate manager
Comes with high conversion tools
Won the “Best Financial Affiliate Program” iGB Affiliate Awards 2015, 2016, 2018

Cons:

Only can promote in financial-related pages and websites
Financial keywords competition is high — so should have strong following beforehand

Best Website Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a SaaS e-commerce platform with over 60,000 merchants. They are known as the e-commerce platform of choice for growing brands because of their built-in features and advanced functionality.

Commission Rate: Generous 200% bounty payment on the plan’s price, meaning you can earn either $60, $160, $250, or $1,500 per paying customer.

Cookie Life: 90 days

Pros:

High commissions
Dedicated account manager
Provide banners and text links
Weekly affiliate newsletter with content templates and SEO advice

Cons:

Moving up tiers hasn’t been systematized
A tier-based commission system is hard to get at first

2. Shopify

Shopify is the world’s most popular eCommerce website builder, boasting 400,000 merchants and a substantial 200% commission on paid stores.

With their name recognition comes stable conversion rates. Plus, their website features helpful affiliate FAQs and promotion ideas.

Commission Rate: 2x 100% commission on the first and second payment of each referred paid plan. In this case, the Basic Shopify plan will let you earn $58 ($29/month x 2 = $58).

The exception is the Shopify Plus plan, where the affiliate earns a flat rate of $2,000 per conversion. In some countries, Shopify increases the payout to 300%.

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

Pays high commission rates.
The payout threshold is just one sale.
You get a full-time affiliate marketing manager.
Publishers can create links for tracking purposes.
The affiliate portal is user-friendly and easy to navigate.

Cons:

Deep linking is available but is a bit disorganized.
A 30-day cookie is satisfactory but a longer cookie (45 to 90-day) would be nicer.

3. Weebly

Weebly is a simple website builder with an impressive 40 million+ users. It is not the most advanced website builder.

But its drag and drop interface makes it very easy to build a quick website. They offer a 30% recurring commission for as long as the customer is active, and feature a generous 120-day cookie window.

Commission Rate: 30% recurring commission

Cookie Life: 120 days

Pros:

Intuitive and easy to use dashboard
You earn the $25 equivalent per referral (GBP and EURO is higher)
Add-on and app integration

Cons:

Only one referral link can be linked per person
You earn the $25 equivalent per referral (for CAD and AUD, it’s lower)
Cluttered layout

4. Wix

Wix is another high-quality website builder with an insane 100 million users. They provide their affiliates with $100 per sale and feature a lot of great landing pages to use in multiple languages.

Wix also hosts over 160 million websites and has over 100 custom templates you can pick and choose. Their range of layouts is perfect for small businesses, restaurants, and artist websites.

Commission Rate: $100 per sale

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

$100 per premium referral
An abundance of creative resources
Premium membership models fit a variety of customers

Cons:

The monthly payout threshold is $300
One-time payout. Not-recurring affiliate revenues.

Best Finance Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. Equifax

Equifax is a credit reporting agency that analyzes user information to find your credit score.

It can generate credit reports, manage freezes, manage fraud alerts, and help you reach your financial goals. It also has identity theft protection services with plans that can fit your entire family.

Commission Rate: $10-40 Cookie

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

Banners and creatives are given
Special commissions for top-performing affiliates are available
Drive traffic to site by providing industry-leading business credit report articles

Cons:

Currently closed

2. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is a full-feature accounting software manager made by Intuit. It’s not used for individuals to handle their personal finances.

Mainly, it mainly serves accounting applications to accept business payments, manage payroll functions and pay bills.

Commission Rate: earn up to 10% percent in commissions, or $25 per paid subscription.

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

Given marketing assets for you to use on your site
Plan available for self-employed, product businesses, and services

Cons:

Only available for U.S. residents
$50 minimum payment threshold
Need a website to join the program

3. TurboTax

Turbotax makes it easy to file 100% accurate federal and state income tax returns.

Allows you to prepare your tax return across all your devices without the need from you to save anything on your computer.

It asks you questions about your life and does the behind-the-scenes computations for you.

Commission Rate: Up to 15% once referred has paid taxes

Cookie Life: 7 days

Pros:

Setup assistance is provided at no cost
Help your readers with educational tools they’ll use in life

Cons:

May already have constant tax service
January to April is busy season, but other times may wear off

4. Revolut For Business

Revolut for Business was made to cut down expenses for businesses, companies, and sole traders.

It has different subscription plans that help you deal with your finances. Now, it handles and converts over 30+ currencies and helps send and receive international payments.

Commission Rate: Details are private and on hold

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

Europe’s fastest growing fintech across four plans
Can choose which plan you want to be an affiliate of

Cons:

Monthly payments
Currently on-hold

Online Education Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. SkillShare

Skillshare is an online learning website taught by experts and professionals that has thousands of creative classes, all with the intent of helping you learn new skills.

You can learn almost anything on this platform: some include knitting, cooking, writing, analytics, photography, and graphic design.

Millions of people learn from SkillShare and use it to level up their knowledge and skills to become better at what they do.

Commission Rate: Earn $7 for every new customer you refer to Skillshare

Cookie Life: 30-day cookie

Pros:

$7 per new user is great for big channels
Trial signups count as a customer referred
Free to anybody who has an audience aligned with Skillshare’s brand

Cons:

Lots of competition in YouTube
$7 referral isn’t too much for smaller publishers
Receive payouts once a month — at the 16th of each month for the previous month’s referrals

2. LinkedIn Learning

Linkedin Learning is an online learning platform that gives you complete access to expert-led course videos.

The courses in this platform help you develop business, technology-related. And creative skills that you can include in your LinkedIn profile once you’ve completed them.

Many courses are equipped with final tests and exercises as well as video transcripts to make the most out of your learning experience.

Commission Rate: $40 per month subscription or 35 percent of the sale from a standalone (individual course) purchase.

Cookie Life: 30-day cookie

Pros:

A dedicated affiliate program team
Access to banners, text links, and free trial offers
Access to a wide audience — many people are on LinkedIn!

Cons:

Stiff competition with vastly more resources in SkillShare and Coursera
LinkedIn members are savvy professionals that already know the ins and outs of their career

3. Coursera

Coursera is a learning program that delivers quality education from up to 200 universities around the world.

These courses help students and life-long learners by providing flexible, affordable. Job-relevant offerings that help them upskill and reskill for their future careers and themselves.

Over 82 million learners around the world use Coursera to build their skills and confidence.

Commission Rate: Earn anywhere between 10 to 45% commission on 4,000+ courses.

Cookie Life: Undisclosed

Pros:

Earn multiple times for an individual user
Linkshare tracking links for tracking referral link analytics
Comes with Clean, professionally designed Coursera banners for your website
Receive commission even if the user purchases a different course, as long as it’s in the same cookie window

Cons:

Payout is released only on the first month (no recurring payments)
Can earn only 10% commission on some courses

4.Udemy

Udemy is another extremely popular online learning platform, potentially even the largest in the world.

Aimed at both adults and students, this platform has more than 30 million students and 50,000 instructors that teach courses in over 60 different languages.

With over 245 million course enrollments so far, Udemy’s affiliate program is an attractive choice for those who have educational blogs.

The program is hosted on Rakuten LinkShare and is periodically available on other affiliate networks.

Commission Rate: 15%

Cookie Life: 7 days

Pros:

Over 100+ sub-categories
Deep linking opportunities
Promotional assets and tools available to help you drive sales
Thousands of available classes to promote on virtually ever topic imaginable (with hundreds of pre-designed banners)

Cons:

Low commissions
Relatively high payout threshold ($50 minimum)
Their affiliate program landing page and description could use some love

Online Job Site Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. SurveyJunkie

SurveyJunkie has millions of people using their affiliate program — and for a good reason. This platform pays its users to share their opinions with popular brands on any device.

With an alluring way to earn money as a form of side income. Many market researchers use that to their advantage to gain more information about their customer profile.

For survey takers, all you have to do is build a profile before getting some tailor-made surveys to fill.

Commission Rate: $1.50 for each referral

Cookie Life: At least 30 days

Pros:

Easy to understand commission scheme
Appealing product idea for both researcher and customer

Cons:

Payment through Paypal only
No guarantee to be nominated to participate in a survey

2. FlexJobs

FlexJobs is the #1 job-hunting platform where job-hunters can seek for work-from-home jobs that replace offices.

Operating since 2007, FlexJobs has helped over millions connect with recruiters and secure the job of their dreams for an affordable price.

Their affiliate program is also hosted through CJ, one of the leading affiliate platforms, so you know you’re in safe hands.

Commission Rate: $7-$10 paid for every new subscriber

Cookie Life: at least 30 days

Pros:

No fee cut off unlike Upwork (20%) or Fiverr.
Companies who hire include Apple, Dell, Hilton, and Xerox

Cons:

Paid pricing model is a major turnoff
Competition like Upwork or Fiverr also have affiliate program plans

3. Fivver

Fiverr is the largest freelance services marketplace fathering millions of creatives, consultants, and freelance specialists.

By signing up for the Fiverr affiliate program, you gain a chance to promote the world’s biggest marketplace for online services.

From writing and logo design to programming and business services, the options are endless.

Commission Rate: $15-$150 CPA for every first-time buyer or up to $1,000 per sale

Cookie Life: 30 days

Pros:

You won’t be restricted with Fiverr
Online businesses are on the uptrend
Popular as over 5.5M people use Fiverr

Cons:

Won’t earn commission from referring sellers
Can’t use PPC ads and FB ads to promote Fiverr

Types Of Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

1. One Tier – get a commission when a sale is generated from your affiliate link.

2. Two Tier – get a commission when you refer other affiliates and they start making sales (think multilevel marketing).

An example is WP Engine’s program where I tell my readers about their WordPress hosting. They start making sales, and I earn $50/sale from each sale they generate.

3. Climbing Tiers increased commissions as you make more sales.

4. Recurring Commissions – usually happens with subscription services… you continuously receive commissions so long as people are signed up. AWeber and SEMrush do this.

5. Sitewide Commissions – get a commission no matter what people buy on the affiliate’s website. Amazon’s affiliate program does this.

6. Pay Per Lead – get a commission based on the number of leads (eg. contact form fill-outs) you send to a business.

Be sure setup your analytics to track this and have a solid, written agreement with your affiliate. You don’t want to spend tons of time and get burned, like I have.

7. Cookies – amount of time after people click your affiliate link you will receive a commission if a sale is generated. Usually 30-90 days but shouldn’t be a deal breaker when choosing affiliates.

8. Individual Affiliate Programs where you sign up through their website.

9. Affiliate Marketplaces – ShareASale and ClickBank have thousands of merchants to choose from. It’s nice to login to 1 place and check the performance of multiple affiliates without going to each individual portal on each website.

Many programs aren’t part of a marketplace though. I’m a big fan of ShareASale – there are so many companies and industries you can choose from.

Amazon Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

The most popular of them all. I don’t participate myself (yet) but the majority of affiliate marketers I know use Amazon because… it’s Amazon.

You can review products you have used or write tutorials (eg. how to connect computer to TV) and drop an affiliate link to an HDMI cable… just a couple examples.

You may want to build relationships with the manufacturers so you can get products before they’re released – giving you time to create a review before the product is launched and capture sales during peak buying times.

Super high conversions
Up to 10% commissions
Commission % based on categories
Create a custom affiliate link to any product
Sitewide commissions (if they buy anything using your link, you get a commission)

WordPress Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

If you’re in the WordPress industry like I am (whether it be design, development, or SEO) I have accumulated quite the list of WordPress affiliate programs.

I excluded those I found unsuccessful or pay too little to make a profit from, specifically ThemeForest, Creative Market, and low quality theme stores like Template Monster.

Hosting pays well and I wrote a tutorial for SiteGround’s affiliate program and StudioPress themes which are my 2 highest paying affiliates.

Those tutorials have tons of screenshots/social proof especially for SiteGround.

SiteGround – my main hosting affiliate with a solid reputation on social media (which I use to my advantage). They pay $50 – 100+/sale and award custom commissions based on your performance and whether you’re selling more expensive hosting plans.
WP Engine – $200/sale with a two-tier affiliate program ($50 for each two-tier sale)
StudioPress – known for being the most quality WordPress themes built in Genesis
Elegant Themes – high quality themes with generous affiliate program (50% of sale)
StackPath – CDN with 31 additional data centers (Cloudflare has 200+ data centers, but more data centers = faster content delivery). I get around $1,000/month by referring people to StackPath in my cache plugin tutorials. StackPath recently bought MaxCDN and their affiliate acceptance rate is much lower (depends on your potential volume) but most cache plugins converted to StackPath as their recommended CDN.
Freelancer – refer people to developers, designers, and other freelancers you’ve worked with and make 100% of Freelancer’s project commission for the first 90 days. I get a lot of people requesting WordPress speed optimization services… so I refer them to my developers with a freelancer affiliate link and make $125/month in passive income. You can’t use affiliate links to link to specific freelancer profiles. So I direct people to the homepage via affiliate link and give people my developer’s usernames.

Run The Numbers: Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

High Commissions, High Conversions, Low Reversal Rates
Of course you want affiliates with high commissions. But they should also have a solid reputation with high conversions and low reversal rates (you get $0 if people cancel after signing up).

If they’re part of an affiliate marketplace like ShareASale or ClickBank you can see some numbers there.

Companies likes Amazon/SiteGround are safe bets. Otherwise do your research (or track your affiliate links so you can monitor their performance).

Avoid affiliates offering huge commissions since this probably means they’re struggling to acquire/retain customers naturally. This will hurt your numbers (specifically your conversions/reversal rates).

Why I Didn’t Promote WP Engine For $200/Sale

I could have promoted WP Engine (hosting company) for $200/sale with no tier program to climb – sounds pretty good right?

But when I checked ShareASale I saw their reversal rates were 24%! Just to give you an idea SiteGround’s reversals are less than 10%. WP Engine starts at $29/month while SiteGround’s is $3.95/month, plus SiteGround has a better reputation.

I had to climb a tier program to higher commissions with SiteGround. But it paid off long-term. Best Affiliate Programs For Bloggers

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