As an affiliate marketer you want to find the highest paying affiliateprograms that best align with your audience. The Best Affiliate Programs.
Who has the best affiliate programs? You of course have Amazon, the 800 lb. gorilla with something for everyone.
Amazon Associates is free to join and converts very well. But with average commission rates of 3% — not exactly a high paying affiliate program. You will need to get quite a bit of traffic to do well.
Amazon has lowered its commission rates across the board. Most products are now in the 3% commission category.
Where there used to be many in the 6% – 8% category. That’s an over 50% cut in affiliate commissions.
The good news is that there is a huge world or high paying affiliate programs beyond Amazon. Lets look at the best affiliate programs available for your niche.
Best Affiliate Marketing Programs and Networks
There are manygreat affiliate programs to choose from that are perfect for beginners and experts alike.
There are so many high-paying offers for you to represent as an affiliate marketer beyond Amazon. These include direct programs and networks or affiliate platforms…
High Paying & High Ticket programs
Recurring commission programs
Direct programs like Target and eBay
Affiliate Networks like ClickBank and ShareASale
All niches will have additional affiliate programs. You are doing a service to your audience and increasing your authority by seeking out and reviewing these niche-specific products.
We have looked at hundreds of affiliate programs in many niches. Here are our favorites for diversifying your income now.
Rather than use an affiliate network like ClickBank or ShareAsale, many companies run their own in-house affiliate programs.
These can be some of the best affiliate programs … and the highest paying. Having an in-house affiliate team shows a commitment to the affiliate channel.
When a company creates a technology platform and has affiliate management staff they are making a substantial investment in affiliate marketing.
The list below is our collection of the best affiliate programs run directly by the product companies. They cover a number of niches … this is a good place to look for the most popular products for your visitors.
Get Response Affiliate Program — Popular email service provide for affiliates.
Etsy Affiliate – Handmade wonders
Airbnb Affiliate Program — Two ways to earn
Nike Affiliate – King of brands.
Grammarly Affiliate Program — Be a better writer and earn too
ColourPop Affiliate Program — Cosmetics sell.
Wayfair Affiliate — Home and garden commissions.
Google Affiliate Program — Making money with G-Suite
Microsoft Affiliate Program — King of PCs
Ebay Partner Network — Make money with auctions.
WP Engine Program — $200 per new customer!
Udemy Affiliate Program — #1 Courseware Marketplace
Fiverr Affiliate Program — Leverage the Gig Economy Hyper Growth
HubSpot — Up to $1,000 commissions.
SkyScanne — CPI for app
Shopify Affiliate — Programs for affiliate and shopkeepers.
Hostgator Affiliate — Popular hosting for new websites.
Wix Affiliate — Sell hosting for hands off owners.
Teachable Program — Catch the courseware wave.
Digital Product Affiliate Programs
Digital products are a unique market and have some of the best affiliate programs. These are downloadable offerings like, plugins & themes, Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings, training and memberships, etc.
They are particular popular in the Health & Nutrition, Internet Marketing and Make Money Online (MMO) niches. But most niches will have digital products that are appropriate.
For instance one of the best selling products on ClickBank is Ted’s Woodworking, a woodworking plans and resource product.
ClickBank is known by most affiliate marketers and digital product creators. Like JVZoo, Warrior Plus, and 2Checkout they specialize in digital products.
You do need to be careful with ClickBank as many of the offers are of lower quality.
ClickBank specializes in affiliate programs for info products with health, dating and self-improvement being popular offers.
Many affiliates use email, solo ads and similar marketing methods to promote these products.
Though ClickBank is free for affiliates there is a $75 charge to list products on the network
Millions of products
Free for affiliates and &75 for content owners to join
Warrior+Plus is a specialized network that focuses on digital products and almost all in the Make Money Online (MMO) space.
They make it very easy to join and very easy to launch a new product if you want to try your hand as a product creator.
A downside to the ease of product launch though is that many of the products are not the highest quality.
To help find better products many affiliates focus the program search tool on the refund rate first; then sales, conversion rate and commission amount.
In addition to the digital product affiliate networks in the previous section, there are many affiliate platforms for other product types.
Rather than creating free-standing affiliate programs, many product owners will join an affiliate marketing network.
Affiliate marketing companies like ShareASale, CJ (Commission Junction) etc. manages affiliate programs on their systems for many companies.
They will typically take a percentage of each sale as their payment from the merchants. Some merchants will join multiple affiliate networks.
For marketers you can find some of the best affiliate programs all in one platform.
Rather than 10 accounts from individual affiliate programs, an affiliate network or marketplace gives you one dashboard to manage all 10 affiliate programs.
You also can find new listings in your niche for fresh product offers.
2Checkout specializes in digital products much like ClickBank and JVZoo, They work as a payment processing system for your digital product and have an associated affiliate community to help sell your downloadable product. Most products sols are software or SaaS (software as a Service)
Affiliaxe is an interesting example of specialization. In this case they target “super affiliates” and experienced marketers.
They have over 700 offers in some of the most profitable niches. There offers are clustered in niches such as: Dieting, Health & Wellness, and Entertainment.
This network is particularly good for those with huge email lists and a history of successful affiliate sales.
You won’t be just another affiliate as you might be at a network like ShareASale for instance. On the other hand some smaller affiliates have commented that it is difficult to get approved.
Robust and mature affiliate network with over 10 year track record. They have a nice concentration of outdoor and sporting products to offer visitors.
Based on Park City Utah they provide a cool automatic link encoder to create a link when you mention a certain website, or a certain keyword.
So if you want to link to the affiliate merchant website whenever you mention the company name in any article, just add the company name as a keyword — nice.
Awin was formerly known as Affiliate Window. The away affiliate program is not free to join. Awin have a $5 fee to apply which is a bit unusual but you get it credited to your new account when approved.
They have over 100,000 programs in niches from fashion and travel to beauty and business. Are very helpful for newer affiliates with easy approval and lots of tutorials and other helpful marketing materials
Great Dashboard
Newbie Friendly
Not Free, $5 fee credited to your account.
Awin affiliate programs include some major players and household names.
CJ was formerly known as Commission Junction. They are similar to Rakuten, and ShareASale. It is really a matter of who has the best products for you and which advertisers will accept you.
CJ is one of the larger programs so there are many offers to choose from. They provide many types of performance marketing programs including :
CPA,
CPL,
CPS,
CPC.
They have some great merchants including: Booking.com, Cheapoair, As Seen on TV.
FlexOffers represents is the affiliate program of choice for many national retailers including: Travelocity, Macy’s, IHG, Nike and more.
They have mainly Cost per Sale programs where you earn a commission when your referred visitor purchase.
Also have some Cost per Action programs where you are paid for free trials or email signups. Are a bit fussier with the approval process.
You will need to verify both your website and a mobile number. FlexOffers has some powerful brands for you to consider for your affiliate marketing portfolio.
Impact has a strong affiliate program. They were founded in 2008 by former Commission Junction employees.
Places a strong emphasis on campaign testing and optimization. And they have a great dashboard and many high profile merchants. they are not the fastest at approving you and do have a phone verification step.
LinkConnector was ranked among the top 10 affiliate networks by mThink. I am not sure why it is not better known but they are a strong program with great merchants.
They have a very strong and active affiliate management team that wants to help you succeed. One cool feature is naked linking.
This allows for links with no obvious affiliate suffix. This helps with conversions. They support many performance marketing models including Pay Per Call, Pay Per Go, Pay Per Lead and Pay Per Click.
Coupons are supported with tools to prevent coupon hijacking.
MoreNiche is not the biggest program and don’t have as many products to choose from as other programs. This is not a bad thing. Their products are really strong and they typically pay 30%-40%.
The advantage of a smaller network like MoreNiche is that they give their affiliates personal attention.
Helping with everything from SEO advice to website audits, and help with conversions. They even hold mastermind events.
PepperJam wants to do things differently. Publishers and advertisers can directly communicate with affiliates being potentially offered personalized incentives.
They have strong brands like Nordstrom, Retailmenot and Shutterfly. You can create a deep link for any advertiser using the Pepperjam Link Generator,. The Link Generator is attached to your bookmark bar on your web browser.
Rakuten used to be known as LinkShare. They have been around since the late 90’s. Not as big as others with approximately 1900 advertisers. The offers are grouped by category for easy discovery.
They have a good mix of products with both large brands like Dior and trending companies in tech like TextNow.
Their affiliate dashboard and support are well regarded. Many programs require individual sire reviews by advertisers.
ShareASale represents a number of brands. many of the programs have auto-sign up. Many do require a review by the individual company affiliate manager.
ShareASale has a good mix of physical product companies and services. They have many household names in their merchant portfolio including Wayfair, Eastern Mountain Sport, NFL Shop, and WP Engine.
Many easy approval products
Great Products
Perfect Amazon replacement fro physical products
ShareASale has a good mix of physical product companies and services. They have many household names in their merchant portfolio including …
TradeDoubler has over 2,000 publishers and over 180,000 publishers. They are a very strong affiliate network with a large concentration of European based products. They support many types of affiliates including coupon and comparison sites.
High paying isn’t the only factor. You want the best and most relevant products for your audience.
To easily find the best affiliate programs for YOUR blog or affiliate site we have created reviews of affiliate programs organized by niche …
1. Dating Affiliate Programs
Ever-popular & evergreen. We all need love. Top dating programs include …
Cupid.com
eHarmony
Ashley Madison
OurTime
Match
Christian Mingle
more …
2. Fashion Affiliate Programs
Fashion changes with the season. Top programs include …
Saks
Neiman Marcus
Zaful
Gap
Nordstrum
Nike
more …
3. Affiliate Programs for Bloggers
Earn Don’t Churn
Bloggers have to be particularly careful of matching their affiliate offers to their audience. You have gained their trust through lots of hard work — one bad offer can have them leave the fold.
Amazon
ShareASale
ClickBank (be careful)
more …
4. Travel Affiliate Programs
Always evergreen and lots of sub-niches …
Expedia
Kayak
WorldNomads
Anantara
TripAdvisor
Viator
more …
5. SEO Affiliate Programs
Competitive but a good earner. There are lots of recurring affiliate programs in this group …
Long Tail Pro
Mangools
MOZ
SEMrush
SEO Powersuite
SpyFu
more …
6. Gaming Affiliate Programs
If gaming is your passion then there are lots of opportunities …
Twitch
CD Keys
Epic
Nvidia
Zygor Guides
Modded Zone
more …
7. Email Marketing Service Programs
Recurring commissions and big bounties. There are many email affiliate programs to consider …
Aweber
BenchMark
Constant Contact
GetResponse
MailChimp
SendinBlue
more …
8. Hosting Affiliate Programs
Big money, a bit competitive, but worth staking your ground. Everyone needs hosting and every hosting company has an affiliate program …
HostGator
Bluehost
A2 Hosting
SiteGround
WPX Hosting
DreamHost
more …
9. Makeup Affiliate Programs
Makeup rules. Its evergreen if you know your audience you can easily find a makeup program …
Afterglow
Sephora
Ulta
100% Pure
BH Cosmetics
Black Opal
more …
9. VPN Affiliate Programs
Browse safely. VPN programs pay very well and there is one for everyone …
SaferVPN
NordVPN
TunnelBear
Hide.me
CyberGhost
Express VPN
more …
10. Fitness Affiliate Programs
Competitive but always a strong earner. …
Fitbit
Hidrate Spark
Ace Fitness
Weight Watchers
Organifi
more …
For Amazon affiliate products you want to cover many price points. Almost every niche will some very expensive high-end products. Here is our list ……………………..
Who doesn’t like the commissions from high-ticket items. There are programs out their that literally pay hundreds and thousands of dollars per deal.
It is always best to spread your risk in terms of affiliate programs. You don’t want to be 100% dependent on Amazon for instance.
They may change their commission rates … again. They may de-authorize you for some unknown reason … it happens.
All of these programs pay at least $300 most pay more. Many of the programs have recurring payments.
Of course this means that there are some big players chasing these commissions. It can be a bit intimidating.
Types of High Ticket Affiliate Programs
There are two major types of programs to consider …
1. Expensive Products
Expensive products are more difficult to represent as the initial purchase is so high. But there are a lot of wealthy people buying luxury and other very expensive physical products.
These are best if your niche has lots of luxury or other big-ticket items that is great. If you starting a new site or have a more general audience it can be difficult to make these transactions and the commission payouts are limited by the net margin.
The buyer of a Rolex watch for $10,000 may only yield a gross profit of $500. The merchant then needs to deduct their cost of sales and overhead.
The merchant can then only share a percentage of that net margin with you.
2. Monthly Fee Products
I prefer the monthly fee products, they are easier to close than a single purchase in the thousands. Someone paying a few hundred per month can yield a commission in the thousands.
This is because these SaaS or hosting vendors know the total lifetime value of the customer. They know that there average customers stays with them for 14 months they can pay a much higher initial commission.
To them it is a customer acquisition fee that has a great ROI. Unlike the Rolex watch it is not a one-time purchase and relationship.
The Amazing Selling Machine is an Amazon FBA training program. They have a very heavy focus on launches. They build scarcity by opening the program at only certain times.
It is very effective messaging when the state that, ” We are currently helping all of our new ASM12 Members build a life of freedom through business Join the waitlist to be notified when ASM becomes available.”
Unlike affiliate marketing he Amazon FBA business attracts people who have some money to invest.
They know they will need to purchase inventory, pay shipping, do some advertising at Amazon. They want to protect this capital.
ASM leaders are very active in the community and have a great reputation. Something many similar companies can not claim.
Launches can be very competitive so you may not have quick successes but stick with it. Bonus offers that are related to FBA can definitely help.
Clickfunnels is a phenomenal affiliate program. They are world-class marketers who have put together an army of affiliates and sub-affiliates to sell their products.
Are a great example of what you can do if you put affiliates first. And they have a best-in-class product for building landing pages and offer a 14-day free trial.
This is easy business to close.
ClickFunnels pays 40% commission and has two plans a $97/mo and a $297/mo one. So you will earn $38 or $118 per month for each basic sale.
They use a sticky cookie that will not expire, the only way to lose the prospect is if another ClickFunnels affiliate is visited, overwriting your cookie.
The big money comes into play with the up-sells like the Funnel Builder Secrets. This is a $1,997 product that pays you $798!
And a final incentive. When you get to 100 active members, ClickFunnels will cover the lease of your dream car – up to $500/mo. Get 200 active members and it is a $1000/mo lease payment.
Do they know how to take care of affiliates or what?
HubSpot has a full suite of Internet Marketing tools for the small medium business (SMB) community.
There services include all aspects of the customer relationship lifecycle. From initial content strategies and inbound campaigns to A?B testing ad campaigns. It is one-stop shopping.
They have three packages; Starter, Professional and Enterprise. They pay well …
Starter/Basic -> $250 in commission
Professional/CMS -> $500 in commission
Enterprise -> $1,000 in commission
It is a strong brand with high conversions and low reversal rates. A solid performer. They compete with products like:
Improvely is a tool for paid advertisers. It helps reduce fraud and tracks conversions. It has a very strong payback for advertisers. Prices range from $29/mo to $299/mo and all plans have a 14 day free trial.
The Improvely affiliate program is a hybrid one with an initial payment of 50% of the monthly billing plus a 10% recurring commission for the first year. The affiliate program is manage by ShareASale and approval is very easy.
They have 25 banners and other display ads for you to use in your promotions …
Kinsta is like WP Engine, a Managed WordPress hosting company. One of the great things about the Kinsta product is that they have a very low churn rate (very few people leave) and they pay you a 10% recurring commission! This is something WP Engine does not offer.
The commission plan is a bit lower than WP Engine for initial payouts …
Starter Plan … $50 commission
Business Plan … $100 commission
Pro Plan … $150 commission
Enterprise Plan … $500 commission
A good strategy would be to do comparison articles of Kinsta vs. WP Engine, Kinsta vs. WPX Hosting etc.
You may need to be even narrower with the keywords than this to rank well. Much depends on your sites hosting relevance.
Liquid Web is a high-end hosting company that focuses on SMB – Enterprise products. You won’t find any $2.95/mo shared hosting here.
They are my hosting company for this site for a few reasons:
They have great support
Have fast hosting (Pingdom has this site loading in .72 seconds)
And have a great affiliate program with expensive products
Most hosting companies have good affiliate programs. And I am happy to get the base $200 from someone like WP Engine for simply selling a $35/mo product.
But hosting affiliate programs are very competitive – they just pay too well. Liquid Web will pay 150% of the monthly billing. So a $2000/mo enterprise server will pay you $3000 !
I like to focus on high end servers like high availability server clusters from Liquid Web. There are fewer affiliates writing and ranking content in these narrower niches.
Puffy makes great mattresses for a great nights sleep. They actually have a 101-night sleep trial with a money back guarantee.
Mattresses should be a relatively easy conversion. Everyone realizes how much of their life is spent with their mattress.
The Puffy mattress is an all foam bed. I sleep on one of these latex beds (though not a Puffy one) and they are the best.
Much better for large framed people (that sounds better than heavy) like myself. They cost $1,495 after discount which is very competitive with premium box-spring/coil mattresses.
Buying a mattress can be a hassle but Puffy makes it easy with free 2-5 day Fedex delivery.
The affiliate program is easy to understand. They pay $300 or $350 depending on the mattress. They have some nice bonus offers as well.
For instance, sell 10 mattresses in your first 30 days and get a $1000 bonus! They have lots of creatives available like banners and ads. Their top performing affiliates are earning over $10k per month.
Shopify is the leading hosted e-commerce solution for retailers. They represent retailers small and large. It makes a lot of sense for many retailers to use Shopify.
There other solution is to use WooCommerce which will require both WordPress and WooCommerce support capabilities or Magento which will usually require external support for setup and maintenance.
These are both expensive items when you consider the time you spend dealing with technology – not retailing.
The basic product is inexpensive so there will be no big affiliate commissions. The commission rate is 200% of the monthly base billing rate for the standard packages.
So the basic plan at $29/mo has a payout of $58 – that beats most Amazon sales by a bunch. Shopify Plus pays you a flat $2,000!
Basic … $58 commission
Shopify … $158 commission
Advanced … $598 commission
Shopify Plus … $2,000 commission
The big money is in the Shopify Plus program. This is their product for high volume and larger retailers.
The cookie period is 30 days but all you need to do is get them into a free trial and you have locked in the customer. As long as they convert within the trial period you will get paid.
Spocket is a dropshipping marketplace for US and EU suppliers. Given the tariff wars in China it is front of mind at the moment. They service features:
Automated shipping and fulfillment. They generally ship within one business day.
inventory management at a detailed level to help businesses run smoothly.
Automated integration with most shopping carts and marketplaces.
Kits, assemblies, subscription boxes, and more.
They have a 3-tiered commission program for their affiliates …
Bronze – 20% – up to $297 per subscriber
Silver – 25% – up to $371.25 per subscriber
Gold – 30% – up to $445.50 per subscriber
A nice touch is that provide you with a $100 off coupon to give to your referrals to encourage them to join the program.
14. Thinkific
Commission amount: Up to $675 per referral – per year!
Thinkific is a course creation platform. The target audience is:
Do It Yourself content creators who want to share their knowledge.
Entrepreneurs who want to develop courseware
Businesses who want to create online courses for their customers.
There are 4 plans ranging from $49/mo to $499/mo. with discounts for prepaying annually.
The commission rate is 20% of the monthly payment. The payments are recurring as long as the customer is enrolled.
These are very sticky programs with a low churn rate. You don’t change your course delivery and enrollment platform on a whim. There is a 30 day money back offer on all plans so promote that for sure.
Volusion is a competitor of Shopify. They are an eCommerce platform with over 200,000 customers on-board.
They have two programs for affiliates. The first is to be a reseller partner. This is a program where you get a discount and are billed by Volusion.
You then bill your customer. This is best for agencies and website developers.
The second is a more typical affiliate program. With the Volusion affiliate program you will be paid a one time payment of 200% of the referred customers monthly billing.
The pricing ranges form $29/mo to $299/mo+. Your commissions will be …
Personal … $58 commission
Professional … $158 commission
Business … $598 commission
Prime … $1000+ commission (depending on configuration)
16. WP Engine
Commission amount: 100% of first month – $200 minimum
WP Engine is the leading manages WordPress hosting company. They have a very high paying affiliate program.
I love the minimum $200 commission payout. This is for the single domain $35/mo package. This is such an easy close.
Any small organization without a dedicated IT group would benefit greatly by going with managed WordPress.
The real money though is in the dedicated server offering. This is typically used by small and mid-sized companies looking to consolidate a number of WordPress sites.
It is very common to do an audit of a companies hosting and find that many groups in different departments have each set up their own WordPress site for their stakeholders. This is both costly and inefficient.
Rather than having 20 groups pay separately for their hosting and have multiple support touch-points, WP Engine will consolidate them onto one server with a single support group.
IT will be thrilled with the security and automatic updating. These packages can easily cost a few thousand per month (but still cheaper than 20 separate scattered accounts ).
WP Engine pays a commission rate of 100% of first months billing. If the dedicated server configuration is $1500/mo – you get a $1,500 commission!
Best Recurring Affiliate Programs
Who doesn’t like closing one deal and getting paid forever. That’s the opportunity with recurring programs.
Not only are they usually high paying affiliate programs but you get paid every month that your referred client stays with them.
These types of programs tend to be in hosting, Software as a Service (SaaS), and membership sites. They pay so well because it is not a single transaction.
The product owners enjoy a very high lifetime customer value. Here are some of the best recurring commission offerings.
Here are some of the highest paying recurring programs …
1. Hosting Companies
Hosting always pays well for affiliates. The ones that don’t have a recurring program usually have big initial payouts. Some typical programs …
CloudWays — A hosting company where you can choose between two payout types 1) get paid flat commission ( $50 – $125 per sale) or 2) $30 per sale + 7% residual commissions per month for the lifetime of the customer.
Kinsta — One of the best managed WordPress hosts, $50 – $500. recurring commissions are 10% commission.
2. Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS products have monthly fees so they can generate monthly commissions. Some examples are …
SEMRush — One of the leading SEO companies. 40% recurring commission.
SpyFu — Checkout your competitors keywords. 40% recurring payouts
LeadPages — One of the best landing page platforms. 30% recurring commission, Must be a member!
ClickFunnels — The king of recurring commissions where you can win a car! 40% recurring payment
There are so many offers available for affiliates that there are a few sites that are essentially search engines for offers.
Companies looking for affiliates to promote there offers will get listed in the search engine and perhaps pay for featured positions or other advertising.
When you sign up at these sites you are simply getting access to the search capability.
Unlike an affiliate network you do not actually join the affiliate programs on the site, it is purely a way to find the best affiliate programs for your website and niche.
These sites will have some lesser known, but still high paying affiliate programs. They also may not be as competitive as other programs.
Some of them also offer free training and other information for affiliates. Reviews by other affiliates of the individual programs are also often a part of the value proposition.
These sites tend to have Cost per Action (CPA) offers. CPA offers can include actions where the customer purchases an item but also offers where the customers completes a form or other registration or request for information.
The one downside to these sites is that there are many just so-so offers and just a few really good ones. Think of it as ClickBank for CPA offers.
Affpaying is a close second to Offervault. They have a strong focus on affiliate program reviews … by affiliates.
This can be helpful in weeding out the many poor offers. Much like ClickBank for digital CPS offers you must do some digging to find good money makers.
Lots of affiliate program reviews by fellow marketers
Odigger rounds out the affiliate program search engines. They are not as big as the other two with a few hundred offers usually available.
Good search and dashboard
Display networks and offers by niche
Display offers by type: Mobile, Pay per Call etc.
How To Choose An Affiliate Program
There are so many programs to choose from. There is no one best affiliate program or network, it depends on your niche and audience.
It is tempting to join lots of programs, place some sidebar ads, make an occasional reference to a product, etc.
This generally does not work well. It has a very, very low conversion rate.
A better approach is to really get behind a product. Have landing pages, product reviews (money pages), informational articles, email campaigns, bonus offers, etc.
You are much more likely to be successful with an affiliate program that you focus on and make a commitment too.
Another thing to consider, particularly if you are a successful Amazon affiliate is that Amazon is special.
Amazon has enormous trust, conversion capabilities, and familiarity in the marketplace. You can send them hot, warm or cold traffic and they will perform better than you can.
This is not the case with other affiliate programs. Rather than just send traffic to other programs you will have better success with warming them up with information articles and success stories.
In addition to the raw numbers there are other factors to consider …
1. Target Audience
This is the most important and first thing test to pass. Consider …
Is the offer closely aligned with your target audience
Will they benefit from the product or service
Have you written about the details & advantages
Once you have decided that the product or service is a great fit for your visitors there are a number of program details to consider.
2. Who are your Neighbors?
One of the best ways to evaluate an affiliate network is to see what kind of companies promote them.
If you look at ClickBank for instance many of the offers are by low quality, get-rich-quick types of marketers.
This is not always a bad thing. If you find a great offer that is a perfect fit for your site/audience it may be a good thing that most of the players are weaker sites.
Just like with SERPs and ranking your keywords it will be easier to outperform a lower quality offer.
3. Commission Rate
Well of course this is the biggest factor for many. But always consider how well an offer converts.
A product paying 30% commissions that converts at 3% generates less than one that pays 20% and converts at 7%.
4. Earnings per Click
Earnings per click (EPC)is similar to the conversion rate. It tells you how much is earned per click to the advertiser’s website.
5. Cookie Lifetime
Most affiliate programs use cookies to track your sales. This is a bit of information stored on the user’s computer to track you as the affiliate of record.
These cookies last a certain amount of time.This is the cookie lifetime and ranges from 24 hours like Amazon to long periods like 10-years or lifetime.
6. Average Order Value
The Average Order Value (AOV) will tell you how much a customer spends on average when they complete an order.
This is particularly important in sales funnels with up-sells like many digital products.
7. Is there an affiliate manager?
One of the advantages of a smaller program is that you will have an affiliate manager to work with. Find a good paying product from a smaller team very closely aligned with your niche.
Create some great content and funnels. Spend a little on ads. Before you know it you will be able to ask for a higher commission rate, special coupon codes that align with your content strategy, etc.
8. What companies does the affiliate program represent?
A big benefit to an affiliate network is having many programs under one umbrella. Best to deal with an affiliate network that has a good overlap with your niche. Look for both products that overlap and price points.
9. Payout method
Most affiliate networks will pay with PayPal or ACH/Wire. If you are from a country with no PayPal the payout method is particularly important.
You can usually use Transferwise to receive the ACH/Wire and forward it to your local bank account. A bigger issue is the delay in payments.
This can be essentially immediate or as long as 60 days after the month-end of the transaction. If you are running paid ads this is particularly important.
10. What marketing support do they provide?
Do they provide custom discount codes, ad copy, videos, images and other parts you can use in content or ad campaign. Do they provide deep linking so that you can send your visitor to any content and get affiliate credit?
11. Is there a Quality Affiliate Dashboard?
It can be extremely frustrating to use some of the networks’ dashboards. Some of them feel like they were made in the 1990s pioneering Internet era. A good dashboard lets you …
Quickly find products to promote
Review in detail the program terms
Find media kits and swipes
Track your traffic to each offer
Analyze you performance
Review your earnings and chargebacks
Manage your profile and websites you want to make offers
Types of Programs, Commissions, and Actions
Affiliate programs are not just the Amazon CPS style “pay when something sells”. For instance in the insurance niche, most programs pay you when a quote form or application is completed.
There are also more advertising type programs paying on a CPM or CPC basis. The types of commission structures you will find on an affiliate network include …
CPS — cost per sale. These are the most familiar programs. You refer a customer, the customer makes a purchase, you get paid.
CPA — cost per action. With CPA you get paid when your referred visitor performs an action. This could be makes a purchase but also includes things like registering for a trial, completing a form, enrolling in a newsletter, etc.
CPL — cost per lead. The affiliates in these programs are paid on a per lead basis. This is designed to let the merchant control the entire sales funnel. The is filling the top of the funnel.
CPC — cost per click. This is much like advertising payment structure. You put the merchants banners and other promotional material on your site and the merchant pays for each click on the ad.
CPM — cost per 1k impressions. Cost per Mile or more clearly Cost per Mille (Mille is French for 1,000). This is like cost per click, an ad-based program that pays based on the number of visitors that see the ad.
CPV — Cost per view. This is typically used with video promotions. The affiliate is paid for each person they refer that views a video.
Getting Accepted to a High Paying Affiliate Program
Just like selecting keywords to target, you don’t want to focus on affiliate programs that don’t meet your site’s metrics.
No matter how high paying the program is if it doesn’t convert it is not useful. Many programs also have traffic minimums, Alexa Rank, DA/DR rank, etc.
There are so many programs to choose from it is best to focus on affiliate programs that want you. So how do you present your site as desirable …
Focus on programs squarely in your niche
Make sure your website has a clean design
Have a solid body of related content
Create a review of the vendor’s product in advance
Don’t have multiple ads on every page
Avoid controversial topics, nudity, drug use etc. on the site
Finally, take your time with the application. Pay particular attention to the marketing plan description.
Talk about the success you have had with other affiliate programs. Let the reviewer know that you use and are a supporter of their product or service.
If for some reason you get a denial for a program that is an especially good fit or desirable for your niche – ask for a review or reconsideration of the decision.
Usually, affiliate managers have a lot of discretion. You simply need to convince them that you are going to send high-quality traffic and that you have an audience that wants their product.
How To Market Affiliate Products
There are a few options for marketing these affiliate programs. Email marketing, SEO and content marketing, funnels.
You could also consider a combination using low-cost long-tail ad keywords to test the appeal of certain offers. When you find an offer that converts well you can build a content marketing plan around it.
You need to have a different mindset than an Amazon affiliate.
You want to warm-up the lead as much as possible.
Need to give them personal attention (or at least the appearance of it).
Asking for a big order from someone, you need to earn that right.
These are not impulse buys as you might get at Amazon.
Consider bonuses, support, free installs, templates, bundled software, etc.. Just be sure to stay within the program’s terms of service.
1. Content Marketing
The best approach for me has been very specific topic targeting.
I like to concentrate on very specific keywords that are a perfect match for the offer. These long-tail keywords will likely be low competition lower volume keywords.
Build out content clusters or silos for creating authority in Google’s eyes. So an in-depth post that covers the entire topic and individual posts with more details on specific items.
Create lots of content, be the authority on a topic, be patient, be persistent.
2. Social Media
Social media is where your fans are. It is also a way to amplify new content and build buzz about an offer.
FaceBook is of course the top social channel for most niches but any visual niche should also be leveraging Pinterest and Instagram.
3. Email Marketing
This is tried and true. It works best when you can have an ongoing “dialog” with the recipient. Just sending a single email with an offer is not much more effective than a cold ad.
You want to create a series of emails that have lots of information and value. Even some free giveaways related to the offer.
Then you have trust and will get better conversion on the emails at the end of the autoresponder series that actually have the offer. Lead magnets are typically used to get the initial subscriber.
4. Tutorials
Tutorials work well because they are an interested audience. They are already warm based on the fact they want an in-depth long series of content with details about the offer.
Few people will read a tutorial that are not interested in the product. You want to make the free tutorials intro type pieces. Advanced tutorials will attract existing users. But advanced tutorials make great bonus offers.
5. Case Studies
Like tutorials these attract a warm audience. People interested in the product or service. They provide a form of social proof that can be very effective. These can make good lead magnets for your email opt-in campaigns.
6. Bonus Offers
Bonus offers are deal sweeteners. Many people will check multiple sites for the best offer after they make a buying decision.
Even at the same price, if you have a free advanced tutorial with templates for a product and I have no extras … guess whose link they will use?
7. Leverage your Infrastructure
Every affiliate marketer is running a business. You use lots of tools like …
Hosting
eMail Marketing
SEO Tools
WordPress Themes & Plugins
Promote these tools. These products often have affiliate programs and are typically some of the better payers.
You must like them, you use them. Create content around these tools and services and how you use them.
You have credibility as a customer. This can be very effective. many in your audience are interested in how your business operators.
Paid Ads for Affiliate Sites
Buying ads to generate traffic can be a very effective strategy. There are a few good use cases for paid ads …
New sites — A low cost ad campaign can be used to start generating traffic while Google is deciding how much search traffic to send you. You should think of this kind of ad buying as marketing and don’t expect a large direct sales ROI.
High Ticket Items — Given the large payouts of some products advertising can be part of your profit strategy. There is an entire group of very successful affiliates whose business model revolves around paid ads. They may not even have a website but drive traffic to funnels and other landing pages. Once they find a combination of traffic cost (paid ads), conversions and commissions that is profitable they scale it with more ads.
Authority Sites — SEO driven sites with multiple revenue streams can use paid traffic to feed the entire site’s business model.
For affiliate sites that have matured into authorities in their niche there is typically a set of income streams …
Ad Revenue — past 10k monthly visitors per month ads will start to be worth the effort. Adsense or Ezoic are the best choices for starting out with ad revenue.
Affiliate Revenue — Commissions from referring visitors to 3rd party products
Info Products — eBooks, templates, training, guides. Many marketers with authority will create downloadable and membership products to sell.
Once your website has significant authority you can spend more on ads knowing the total earnings value of a visitor.
The key is to know how much you earn from each visitor when factoring in all of your revenue sources. If your ad spend is less than the earnings per visitor you can then scale up the advertising.
This drives more traffic, creates more revenue, creates more authority which gets you better search results.
There is a reason you see large successful players in your industry advertising — it works. It is always best to start by retargeting your visitors.
Retargeting is a process where you place a cookie on a visitors browser from FaceBook, Adwords or another advertising network.
Then when the visitor is searching in Google or using Facebook you can target the with an ad. It is always easier to convert a warm prospect, someone who has been to your site, than a cold unknown one.
Conclusion
There are so many high paying affiliate programs to choose from. Sure, Amazon is great. But diversification is just good business. There are affiliate marketing programs for every niche.
In addition to traditional retail products, try to find a few high ticket affiliate programs. Another great market is recurring affiliate programs. Any product that has a monthly fee is a good candidate for being a recurring program.
Don’t overlook custom affiliate programs. If there is a product that is a great overlap for your niche and you have a good audience with traffic this can be a game changer.
You can approach the merchant and negotiate a custom affiliate program. If the merchant doesn’t have an affiliate program infrastructure there are a number of WordPress plugins like Affiliate WP that can be easily deployed.
Or they can use a SaaS-based tool likeFirstpromoter or Tapfiliate at only $69/mo and have nothing to manage on their server.
If they don’t want to deal with any new software you can negotiated a Pay Per Click (PPC) deal but be sure to track your clicks with ClickMagick or similar software.
Keep an eye on this page, we will update it regularly.
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