Which Affiliate Programs Should Bloggers Use?
In this post, I’ll show you the best affiliate programs for bloggers looking to monetize their sites.
Being a member of the appropriate affiliate programs is crucial to your success.
You need to make sure the program you’re using is, first, trustworthy, second, will pay you, and third, will offer your customer a quality product or service.
Before you decide on individual products or services, you must be aware of all the methods by which you could be paid as an affiliate.
Here are the main ways to get paid:
Pay per sale: you receive a commission as a proportion of each sale you generate.
Pay per click: you are compensated each time an affiliate link is clicked. usually very little.
We will go over why this is still a lucrative method for bloggers.
Pay per lead: you are compensated a certain amount for each “qualifying” lead you provide to a business.
Although there are numerous additional ways to monetize as an affiliate, like I said before, those are the main ones.
Before I give you some good affiliate programs you can join, there is one thing you need to know.
Some affiliate programs are quite selective.
My recommendation is to start by filling your blog with quality posts and generating traffic before you apply.
Some of these won’t approve you for their network if you don’t already have a solid blog that is full of information and has some kind of traffic pouring in.
But don’t worry.
You can become an affiliate if you want to start promoting because there ARE affiliate programs that do accept almost everyone.
At the very least, set up your blog and add some posts or articles to it.
Now on to what you are reading this article for. 🙂
Here are my top suggestions for affiliate programs that new affiliate bloggers should look into:
Disclaimer: At the time this resource was generated, these resources were up-to-date.
Check to see if they are still available and learn what is needed to apply and get accepted for their program.
PAY PER SALE:
Amazon Associates
Pros: With Amazon, you don’t need a huge site or lots of traffic, which makes getting into their affiliate program a lot easier than other programs.
They have a great reputation, great tracking, and a huge selection of stuff to promote.
Cons: The commissions are very low, between 1% and 5%.
Despite not having the best commissions, you can make it worth your while if you start getting a lot of traffic and affiliate sales.
ShareASale
Pros: ShareASale is a reputable network to work with because it has been operating for a while.
You will have a wide range of alternatives for products to market with them as they manage the affiliate programs for some of the most well-known businesses out there.
They have great tracking, too.
Their commissions depend on the different companies set rates.
And that leads us to the cons.
Cons: When you get approved for ShareASale, it does NOT mean you are approved for each individual company within the platform.
You are required to apply for each one.
I don’t find a problem with this because I have never been denied.
But I guess one day it could happen. 🙂
Affiliate CJ (formerly Commission Junction)
Pros: Another reliable affiliate network that has been in operation for a very long time is Affiliate CJ.
They operate affiliate networks for major brands, just like ShareASale, and offer a wide variety of products for promotion.
And just like ShareASale, they have great tracking.
Cons: They also require you to apply to each company after being approved for the CJ platform itself.
Impact
Pros: Impact is an affiliate network that manages the affiliate program for numerous major brands, just like ShareASale and CJ Affiliate.
It has also been around for a very long time, and their tracking is quite trustworthy.
Cons: Another one that also requires you to apply to each company AFTER being approved for the platform.
ClickBank
ClickBank is one of the largest affiliate marketplaces for downloadable digital products like software, ebooks, and digital courses.
ClickBank processes payments for the vendors and is responsible for paying affiliate commissions.
Pros: Clickbank sells mostly digital products and pays higher commissions.
In recent years, there have been a lot of physical products entering the CB marketplace.
The commission rates for them are still higher than those of other networks and platforms.
You do NOT have to apply to each program.
Just get your link and start promoting.
Tracking is also very good.
Cons: While ClickBank has a great reputation and is reliable, not all of the offers are.
You have to do your due diligence.
JVZoo and Warrior Plus
JVZoo and Warrior Plus are niche-specific platforms, offering mostly digital products in the internet marketing and making money online niches.
(I put these two together because I would just be repeating myself. lol)
Despite the fact that they are quite niche-specific, I wanted to highlight them here because each year, more and more people enter these two niches.
Pros: You can obtain extremely large commissions; some of them pay 100% commissions.
Some companies deposit your money right away into your PayPal account.
You do have to have some sales and a good track record for that.
Which brings us to the con.
Cons: You have to apply for each offer you want to promote and get it approved first.
And sometimes you will not get approved because you have not made any sales before on the platform.
PAY PER CLICK:
Adsense
For those of you who have a new blog and are unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, this is an excellent alternative.
Pros: You can earn money (often cents) with each click by simply pasting a code into specific locations on your website.
Cons: It really doesn’t pay that well.
You need a high volume of traffic.
And if you had a high volume of traffic, then you would go to a higher-paying network like MediaVine.
MediaVine
Similar to Adsense in many ways, but significantly higher paying.
The only restriction is that your blog must already be receiving some traffic and be full of content.
If you already have a blog that is established, I do recommend it instead of Adsense.
Pros: As I’ve said, it pays more than Adsense.
Cons: You need way more traffic to get into Mediavine.
PAY-PER-LEAD or PAY-PER-ACTION:
All pay-per-lead networks work the same way.
Following are just two of them, and the same can be said about both.
MaxBounty and Perform (formerly ClickBooth)
Pros: Your referrals don’t have to buy anything for you to get paid.
You get paid if someone fills out forms, and some of those forms just require an email.
Cons: In most cases, they are very picky about which pay-per-lead or pay-per-action referrals they will pay you for.
Not all referrals will count because it depends on which country they are from.
You have to use CPA networks with extreme caution.
You must only use reliable networks, such as those I just listed.
Make sure to conduct your research before investing your time and all of your advertising money in one of these networks.
My Advice to You
There are a lot of ways to monetize your blog.
My advice is to first work on getting good content added.
And then sharing your content on social media to get some traffic.
Only then should you choose a monetization method and go for it.
Don’t worry if you get denied.
Try another network or method.
OR wait until you have more content and more traffic.
Later, you can join other networks with better alternatives as your site and its readership expand.
Keep in mind that everyone has to start somewhere.
Really look into the different ways, learn more about the prerequisites, and choose the option that will be the most profitable for you and helpful to your readers.
