For bloggers, influencers, and other content creators, affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your efforts. But, where are the best places to search for affiliate programs you can join?
There are a lot of great options out there. We’re going to show you how affiliate marketing works, and then dive into the 10 best affiliate marketing platforms that you can use to find some great opportunities.
What is an affiliate program?
Affiliate programs are programs that ecommerce businesses offer to help spread the word about their products. Businesses with affiliate programs are looking for content creators and marketers that can post affiliate links to generate sales or traffic.
Each affiliate link features a link-tracking element so that if your links do generate sales or traffic, you get a commission according to the terms of the affiliate program agreement.
Affiliate programs vs. affiliate networks
Affiliate networks are different from affiliate programs—but not mutually exclusive! An affiliate network is an established database of affiliate partners like influencers or other great candidates for affiliate marketing. Online businesses that need to promote themselves can leverage the services of an affiliate network to find the right affiliates to help them with their marketing.
In other words, you can use affiliate marketing networks to find the influencers you need for a successful marketing strategy. Or, as an affiliate, you can join an affiliate network to find great businesses with affiliate programs that need you to promote them.
How do affiliate programs work?
As an affiliate marketer, you’ll need to contact businesses or sign up for an affiliate marketing platform. From there, you can apply to be a part of various affiliate programs.
Once approved, you’ll enter into an agreement that stipulates where and how to use the affiliate links that they give you, what you’ll be paid for (either traffic or link clicks that lead to sales), and how much you’ll be paid for each transaction.
Your job is to get the word out there. You can create your own review sites, email lists, post on your social channels, create YouTube videos, or manage a cross-channel campaign. There are all kinds of ways to market!
When customers click your affiliate links, the vendor gets notified that the traffic came from your publicity. If you’re getting paid for traffic, you’ll receive a small commission for each click. If you’re getting paid for sales, then you’ll receive a commission for each affiliate link click that leads to a sale.
Pros and cons of being an affiliate marketer
Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative career if you can leverage high-paying affiliate programs. It can also be a great source of passive income. However, like most things, it’s not for everyone. Weigh these pros and cons to determine if it’s right for you.
Pros
Affiliate marketing has a lot of advantages, and most of them come down to control.
- You’ll have control over which businesses you’ll work with, and what products or services you’ll promote.
- You’ll enjoy complete creative control in terms of your own branding, content marketing, web hosting, social channels, and so on.
- You can choose a mix of commissions or rely on only the highest-paying affiliate programs.
- Affiliates also get to choose the types of commissions they receive—per link clicked or per sale generated.
- Startup costs are typically very low. Whether you plan to be an influencer, a reviewer, or pursue another path, you can usually get your small business started with little more than your smartphone and a laptop.
Cons
As with anything, there are always some disadvantages. Here are a few:
- It’s likely to take a long time to get your online marketing platform off the ground.
- No matter your channels, you’ll need to generate a lot of attention. Most affiliates don’t publish their numbers, but estimates say that the affiliate marketing average conversion rate is between 0.5% and 1%. That means, at best, one sale for every 100 viewers.
- Low conversion rates combined with low commissions can mean it will take a long time (and a lot of traffic) to generate serious revenue. The average affiliate commission (for product or service sales, not clicks), is between 5% and 30%.
- You’ll need to beef up your online marketing skills. If you’re unfamiliar with digital marketing, WordPress, SEO, email marketing, or other skills you may need, it’s best to invest in online courses to build up your knowledge base.
The 10 best affiliate marketing programs
Looking for affiliate marketing programs to join? Read below for our roundup of the 10 best to look into.
Note: These affiliate programs were found during our online research while writing this article.
1. Amazon Associates
Amazon is the biggest online storefront out there, and it’s got a robust affiliate program to match with its Amazon Associates program. It’s easy to get started. Just sign up and you’ll gain access to affiliate links for millions of products. Commissions pay on average between 1% to a maximum of 10%.
There are a lot of advantages to this program. Number one, it has a lot to offer in terms of the sheer number of products available for you to market. There are also custom marketing tools for affiliate marketers of all sizes, so if you’re just starting out, you’ll find tools to help you get the ball rolling.
One thing to keep in mind is that certain categories—like electronics and video games—have particularly low commissions.
2. ClickBank
ClickBank is one of the oldest affiliate programs out there, and as such, they have a wide variety of products that you can promote, though the offerings at ClickBank are mainly for digital products. Commissions can vary, but affiliate marketers can make an average of $50 per sale in some of ClickBank’s top-tier programs.
ClickBank’s advantages stem from its long lifespan. It’s free to join, noted for its reliability, and among the best out there for people who are marketing with email or social media rather than a website.
However, because ClickBank was established in 1998 and hasn’t changed much since then, its interface is quite dated.
3. ShareASale
ShareASale is huge, on par with Amazon in terms of opportunities. This affiliate program boasts partner brands like Etsy, Warby Parker, Reebok, and other big names.
Once you join ShareASale, you’ll need to apply to the brands and merchants that you’d like to market. If individual brands approve your application, you can generate affiliate links and keep track of your sales through their dashboard. Commission rates can vary widely depending on the merchant.
The advantages of ShareASale? It’s a big, well-known platform with a lot of big-name opportunities available. They also offer many tools to make it easy to find the right affiliate programs for you.
This is another platform that has been around for a while, and as such, the interface is pretty outdated.
4. eBay Partner Network
eBay is another massive online retailer that offers a lot of great opportunities. There are more than 1 billion listings in a huge number of categories at any given time, which gives you a lot of options.
The advantages? In addition to the huge amount of diversity to be found here, eBay Partner Network conversion rates tend to be high.
On the other hand, commissions are between 1% and 4% depending on the category—no high commissions here.
5. Rakuten
Like ClickBank and ShareASale, Rakuten is another platform that has been around for a long time. This gives them a well-established, trusted reputation among both affiliate marketers and brands.
Rakuten isn’t as big as some other affiliate marketing programs, but you’ll still find some very well-known brands here, including JetBlue, New Balance, and Sephora, among others. As to commission rates, they can vary widely based on the brand.
Rakuten is a good place for new affiliate marketers to start. While commissions may vary, they offer a lot from brands that are highly recognized and thus, easy to market.
Although Rakuten is a well-known name in the affiliate marketing business, they don’t have the biggest partner roster; many other affiliate programs offer far more than the 1,000 merchants found on Rakuten.
6. CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction)
This is another major player in the affiliate marketing space—and another that has been around since almost the dawn of the Internet, having been founded in 1998.
At CJ Affiliate, affiliate marketers will find thousands of opportunities that range from small brands to some of the world’s most recognized ones. You’ll find opportunities from brands like Under Armor, Verizon, Sears, Samsung, Barnes & Noble, Office Depot, and others.
There are quite a few advantages to working with CJ Affiliate. It’s a great place for people with three to six months of experience, and its partner program offers a great set of tools to support link creation and affiliate marketing. Commissions are pretty good, too, with many of the major brands paying around 20%.
However, it’s worth noting that some users report that they’ve encountered fraudulent publishers through CJ Affiliate, meaning that they may not have the best processes in place for vetting publishers and advertisers.
7. Fiverr
Fiverr might have you scratching your head because it’s a freelancing platform, not an affiliate marketing platform. But, Fiverr has its own affiliate program in which you can promote their freelance marketplace and services. Commissions are between $15 and $150 per referral or $10 plus 10%, depending on the opportunity.
The biggest advantage of this program is that its commissions are pretty good. If you have the right target audience, you can get a high conversion rate, too.
But, rather than marketing a range of products and services, you’ll only be marketing Fiverr’s specific services. This means that with Fiverr, you really need a high-quality audience who is potentially looking for freelancers to hire.
8. Impact
One of the cool things about Impact as an affiliate program is that while they’re not one of the oldest platforms out there, they were founded by the founders of Commission Junction, which means they’re backed by the same experience and expertise as many of the older affiliate companies.
Despite the fact that Impact is a relative newcomer on the scene, you’ll find loads of opportunities here from brands like HSBC, Airbnb, and Adidas. As with most platforms, commissions can vary quite a bit depending on the brands you choose.
Impact has a lot of advantages. Most older platforms are working on dated technology. But Impact has a newer interface and a lot more features to go with it. Another key advantage is that Impact has a whole section of brands that offer instant approvals, which means no waiting to start earning affiliate income.
While the site is really feature-rich, this could make it a little more challenging to navigate—particularly for mobile users, as there’s no mobile app.
9. Refersion
Refersion is one of the newest affiliate platforms out there, and it’s the perfect place for beginners to start. That’s because they offer opportunities with more than 17,000 advertisers, which means you’ll find more opportunities here than anywhere else. Commissions are pretty good, too, averaging between 10% and 20%, with some going as high as 30%.
And that’s one of the biggest perks to this platform: It gives new affiliate marketers fast, easy access to thousands of opportunities of all kinds.
But, with so many advertisers to filter through, it can be tough to filter and find partnerships that are perfect for your marketing campaigns with Refersion.
10. Awin
Awin is another great choice for beginners. Like Refersion, they offer an enormous amount of opportunities—more than 16,500. You’ll find retailers from small to large here, and with that variety comes commissions at varying rates.
The huge amount of choices is one advantage of this platform. It also offers a better interface than most, and it offers accelerated payments so that you don’t have to wait to get paid.
One thing to be aware of is that dozens of marketers join this platform daily, so competition for opportunities can be fierce.
Supercharge your affiliate marketing efforts with Bitly
Ready to start an affiliate site or another type of affiliate marketing campaign? Make sure Bitly is part of your toolbox!
With Bitly, you can supercharge your affiliate marketing efforts. Use the link shortener to create trackable links, or level up and create custom-branded links that are more attractive and clickable. With Bitly Link-in-bio, affiliates can create a streamlined library of their links in one spot, and it’s easy to customize with just a few clicks—no coding or technical skills necessary! You can even track all your link analytics in one place using Bitly’s analytics dashboard.
Ready to learn more about how Bitly solutions can help make your affiliate campaigns even better? Discover how Bitly’s solutions can help you build your brand and drive clicks.