With the plethora of affiliate marketing networks and programs out there, content creators have a wide range of options when it comes to monetizing their blog or any other online channel.
This is why, in the following guide, we’re going to cover:
- What affiliate marketing is
- How affiliate marketing works
Plus, some of the best affiliate marketing programs you can use yourself, including a step-by-step process on successful affiliate recruitment.
Link building cheat sheet
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is the process in which a person earns a commission for marketing a company’s products or services.
By “person” we usually mean an online content creator – like a blogger or YouTuber – with a big audience, who can promote that product or service to their audience and earn affiliate commissions from each sale.
What’s interesting is the fact that affiliate marketing spending in the US has more than quintupled in the last decade.
Showing that this type of marketing has proven to be profitable for both sides; companies and affiliates.
How Affiliate Programs Work
The way affiliate programs work is quite simple and straightforward.
It involves sharing a link of a product on a blog, social media channel, video description, or podcast.
Each time someone makes a purchase from that very same link, the affiliate will earn a commission; the more people that make a purchase, the more money the person will make.
This is exactly why affiliate marketing is very popular among people with a large following since they can easily promote their affiliate links and earn passive income through commissions.
An important metric of this process to keep in mind is the CPA or Cost per Acquisition, where advertisers pay for a specific form of action to be taken, whether that’s a purchase, a download, or booking a demo.
In its simplest form, however, affiliate marketing offers a commission rate based on purchases made through a unique tracking link that each person has.
Author’s Note: Affiliate marketing shouldn’t be confused with referral marketing, although both use the influence of other voices to drive sales.
5 Affiliate Marketing Benefits
Like every promotional activity, affiliate marketing has its own benefits.
After all, those are what make it so popular among online content creators!
Benefit #1: Low start-up costs
The great thing about affiliate marketing is the fact that it doesn’t require a hefty starting capital to set up and advertise.
On the contrary, all companies have to do is generate a tracking link that each affiliate partner will have; the promotion of that link is then in the hands of the partner.
The higher the conversion rate, the more money both the partner and the business make.
Makes sense, right?
Making it clear that affiliate marketing has – pretty much – no start-up costs attached, so it’s an ideal way for beginners in a field to promote their products.
Benefit #2: Low risk
Since the cost of affiliate marketing is so low, it makes sense for the risk to be low as well.
Unlike other marketing tools, affiliate marketing is performance-based.
This means that affiliates only get paid a chunk of a sale, every time they bring a new customer in.
So companies don’t have to worry about spending big money on advertising campaigns and risking them not performing well.
All they have to do is draw high-quality affiliates who are capable enough of promoting their products.
Benefit #3: High ROI
By now, you might have noticed that affiliate marketing sounds a lot like influencer marketing.
This is somewhat true since the most successful affiliates are the ones who have direct access and influence over a highly targeted audience.
Combine that with the low start-up costs and you’ll see that the ROI (Return on Investment) is more often than not relatively high.
Author’s Note: The ROI can be calculated if you know how much revenue was driven by the affiliate marketing campaign and how much money was spent on it.
Benefit #4: Flexibility
Another great thing about affiliate marketing is the flexibility it offers.
What does this mean?
First of all, companies can partner with as many affiliates as they want from a wide range of industries, which provides a greater potential reach and thus high(er) potential profits.
Moreover, affiliate links can be promoted on:
- Blog posts
- YouTube videos
- Podcast descriptions
- Websites
As well as any other channel exposed to a large number of people.
This flexibility is one of the reasons 79% of marketers use affiliate marketing to engage existing customers.
Benefit #5: Low ongoing costs
We mentioned earlier that affiliates are only paid from the number of sales they generate, so any promotional activity is done by them.
This isn’t only cost-effective for companies to set up, but also to maintain for a long period of time.
The cost is actually easy to manage and does not interrupt cash flow, unlike other marketing efforts like PPC which requires paying for every click leading to a website, which doesn’t even guarantee a sale.
All of the benefits above make it clear that affiliate marketing is a great choice for businesses to promote their products, as well as for online creators to earn passive income.
Besides popular affiliate networks like CJ Affiliate, Shareasale, Awin, and Clickbank that businesses can use to generate affiliate links, any creator interested in earning commissions needs to find the right affiliate programs to work with.
Let’s have a look at the best ones out there.
The 23 Best Affiliate Programs Out There
As promised, in this part of our guide we’re going to present some of the best affiliate programs the market has to offer.
Program #1: Semrush
Semrush is an all-in-one SEO tool that offers marketers a plethora of choices when it comes to keyword research, backlink audits, competitor analysis, and more.
The company’s affiliate program has certain rules for a potential affiliate to apply such as:
- Having a website/social media page with over 1K followers
- Writing about digital marketing, SEO, PPC, and other related topics
- Regularly updating the blog
This means that not all can qualify, which is why Semrush offers such a high commission.
To be precise, affiliates earn:
- $0.01 per registration
- $10 per trial booked
- $200 per purchase
Plus, since the program operates with cookie duration, if a referral were to cancel their subscription and sign up again in the future, the commission on that second subscription would still stand.
Semrush definitely offers a great affiliate program!
Commission: $200 for each purchase
Program #2: Shopify
Shopify doesn’t need much of an introduction; it’s possibly the most popular eCommerce platform out there.
Like many other SaaS companies, it attracts new customers through its affiliate program which includes entrepreneurs, influencers, content creators, and anyone else who wishes to monetize their content by spreading the word about Shopify.
However, some criteria must be met like:
- Owning an active online store
- Having an established audience
- Creating content like online courses, seminars, and blog posts
This ensures that the company partners with high-quality new affiliates who want to increase their income.
According to Shopify’s commission structure guidelines:
“Affiliates earn 2x the monthly plan price selected by the merchant that they referred to after the merchant has been active for 2 months”.
When it comes to payouts, affiliates get paid through PayPal on the fifth business day of each month.
If the commission balance is less than $25, then it’s held until the next payout period.
Commission: 200% commission after a referral has been an active subscriber for 2 months.
Program #3: Aweber
Aweber is an all-in-one marketing platform, offering solutions like email marketing, landing page builders, eCommerce store pages, and more.
According to the company, it offers one of the highest paying affiliate programs in the industry and it utilizes a scalable commission structure:
- 50% for 50+ paid users referred
- 40% for 10+ paid users referred
- 30% per paid user referred
So, if an affiliate attracts 50 new users paying $19.99/month, they’ll make $6,000 in a year.
However, keep in mind that it should all be done in a trailing 12-month period.
All in all, as long as you have an established audience and offer content relevant to marketing, Aweber’s referral program seems like a great choice.
Commission: Up to 50% for 50 new users in a 12-month trailing period
Program #4: iSpring
iSpring is a popular SaaS in the eLearning industry, offering tools for online learning and courses.
One of the ways it expands its client base is through its affiliate program, where content creators can promote iSpring and earn a 10% commission on each sale.
Should someone refer 5 people to the platform they can earn up to $485, while for 20 people they can earn up to $1,940.
Becoming an iSpring’s affiliate partner is quite simple and straightforward since all you have to do is fill out a form with some basic information.
Commission: 10% for each sale
Program #5: eBay Partner Network
eBay is one of the world’s first and largest eCommerce marketplaces.
Affiliates can earn money by driving traffic to the website and generating sales for some of the 1.4 billion listings available.
The eBay Partner Network pays a commission of 1% to 4%, so one can earn a commission of the revenue eBay earns from that purchase, based on the product category.
This is very important to know since each category offers a different percentage of the sale.
For example, at the top end, fashion items offer a 4% commission, while at the bottom end, real estate offers 1%.
A downside of this program is that it offers a cap for each category, with most being $550, so earnings potential can be quite limited.
Commission: Up to 4% based on the product category
Program #6: Amazon Associates
Once again, Amazon doesn’t need much of an introduction; it offers a wide range of products that people can purchase online from different categories.
The company’s affiliate program – aka Associates program – gives creators and influencers the chance to earn money by recommending Amazon products to their audience.
In a similar way to eBay, commission depends on the product sold, meaning that some categories offer a higher commission than others.
However, they all range from 1% to 10% with a cookie life of 24 hours.
One of the biggest benefits of joining the Amazon Associates program is the fact that the company is a well-established name already, so people won’t need much convincing into buying something.
This drastically improves conversion rates and thus, an affiliate’s earnings.
Author’s Note: Affiliates with a large audience can opt for the Amazon Influencer Program which works as an extension to the Associates program.
Commission: Up to 10% depending on the product category
Program #7: Fiverr
Undoubtedly, one of the best affiliate programs out there is run by Fiverr.
In case you don’t already know, Fiverr is a platform where freelancers can connect with businesses and offer their services.
It’s well trusted so it makes sense for people to earn money by referring people to the website through their content.
Affiliates get paid for every first-time buyer, but what you need to keep in mind is that the platform offers many products you can promote:
- Fiverr
- Fiverr Business
- Fiverr Learn
- Fiverr Workspace
- Fiverr Logo Maker
Depending on the product, the commission is different.
For instance, Fiverr Learn offers 30% of every course ordered, while Fiverr Business offers a $100 CPA plus 10% revenue share.
One of the best programs is Fiverr Workspace which offers a 50% commission on every unlimited plan.
Not bad, right?
Commission: Ranges from 10% to 50%
Program #8: Bluehost
Bluehost is a WordPress hosting website that supports more than 2 million websites.
Besides being a great business, it actually offers a referral program that paid over $5 million in commissions last year alone!
Impressive, right?
It basically allows people to promote Bluehost through custom banners or links, so for every new sale, the affiliate earns a fixed fee of $65.
It’s free to join and offers reliable tracking, plus a dedicated team of affiliate managers to help you out at any time.
While there are many web hosting services growing through affiliate marketing, it’s safe to say that Bluehost is one of the best.
Commission: $65 for every purchase made
Program #9: ConvertKit
ConvertKit has become one of the leading email marketing platforms and like many others, affiliate marketing is an integral part of its strategy.
Through its affiliate program, it allows creators to promote the platform through links to expand the user base, in exchange for a percentage of each sale made.
To give you an idea, the program offers a 30% commission for 24 months for every referred paying customer.
Joining ConvertKit’s program is quite simple and straightforward, so if you have an audience, promoting the platform through your content could be a great way to earn affiliate income.
Commission: 30% for each sale made
Program #10: LeadPages
LeadPages is a landing page and website builder for small businesses to connect with their audience.
The company actually offers an awesome affiliate program, which allows creators to earn up to a 50% commission.
However, it’s slightly more complicated than that since there are 3 tier levels:
- Bronze
- Silver
- Gold
Each with its own commission rate (10%, 40%, and 50% respectively).
As you can see above, the commission rate is also defined by the net amount of sales, so if the revenue generated from an affiliate is $30 the rate is 10%, whereas if it’s over $3,000 the rate is 50%.
Not too bad!
Commission: Up to 50% depending on the sales
Program #11: WP Engine
WP Engine is another WordPress hosting service taking advantage of affiliate marketing as a growth tool.
There are actually 2 ways in which affiliates can earn money:
- $200 per signup
- 100% of the customer’s first monthly payment
This means that they can choose whichever one’s higher, plus gain access to exclusive affiliate discounts!
Commission: $200 or 100% of the first month’s payment
Program #12: Moosend
In case you haven’t heard of Moosend, it’s one of the leading email marketing tools the market has to offer.
Like many other of the industry’s tools, Moosend allows creators to monetize their content by becoming affiliates or “partners”.
This is possible through an affiliate program, which offers a scalable monthly commission depending on the number of new users referred.
To be precise:
- $70 for 5 accounts referred
- $140 for 10 accounts referred
- $210 for 15 accounts referred
And so on and so forth.
This is part of the 30% recurring commission the program offers, making it particularly attractive for affiliates to join.
Overall, Moosend’s high-paying partner program is a no-brainer!
Commission: 30% recurring commission for life
Program #13: Elementor
Elementor is yet another website builder, specializing in landing pages, eCommerce websites, apps, and blogs.
Besides being a useful and user-friendly tool for developers and designers, it features an attractive affiliate program that they can utilize to earn passive income.
Every affiliate is given a set of marketing materials and a referral link to share with their audience in order to earn a commission based on Elementor’s 2 digital products:
- The Elementor Cloud Website
- The Elementor Pro Plugin
The former provides affiliates with a $70 CPA, while the latter offers a 50% CPA on every sale made.
Not so bad, right?
Keep in mind that there’s a minimum payout threshold of $200.
Commission: $70 or 50% CPA based on the product sold
Program #14: GetResponse
GetResponse is an all-in-one online marketing tool, offering features like email marketing, website building, lead generation, and more.
Apart from being a fascinating tool, GetResponse provides individuals and online businesses with two affiliate programs:
- Recurring Affiliate Program
- Bounty Affiliate Program
What does this mean?
In a nutshell, the former offers a continuous 33% commission every month, while the latter offers an upfront commission of $100 per sale.
The tool also provides affiliates with selling materials, guides, and detailed analytics to monitor their affiliate marketing efforts.
Bear in mind that there’s a 120-day cookie life.
Commission: 33% recurring commission or $100 per sale
Program #15: Pabbly
Pabbly is yet another all-in-one marketing platform with a wide range of features; email marketing, email verification, subscription billing, and form builders are just a few of them.
As you can imagine, Pabbly’s affiliate program is yet another option for users, considering it offers a 30% commission for every recurring sale.
In practice, this means that by sharing a link once, the affiliate earns a commission for as long as the user is subscribed to one of Pabbly’s plans.
For lifetime deals, there’s a fixed 20% commission with a minimum payout of $50.
Commission: 20% to 30%
Program #16: Unbounce
You’re most likely already familiar with Unbounce; one of the leading landing page builders out there.
Besides a wide set of features and integrations, the tool has also created an affiliate program for anyone interested in earning an additional income.
To be precise, users can earn a 20% commission on every referral, which is actually recurring revenue for as long as a customer is subscribed to the product.
An additional benefit is the fact that the referred users also get a 20% discount coupon on their first 3 months, which acts as an extra incentive for someone to sign up to Unbounce.
Pretty cool, right?
According to the website, affiliates can even earn up to $1,600 monthly should they refer 50 people.
Commission: 20% for as long as the referred user is a paid client
Program #17: Systeme
Systeme offers a great variety of tools that businesses can use, such as building online courses, managing affiliate programs, and creating sales funnels.
Digital products like these are perfect for creators to promote to their audience, in order to capitalize on affiliate income.
With Systeme’s affiliate program, referrers can gain a 40% lifetime commission, plus earn 5% second-tier affiliate commissions if their referrals earn with the program.
Another great thing is the fact that in order to join the program, you don’t have to be a customer of Systeme; it’s free for anyone to join.
Apart from subscriptions, affiliates can also promote online courses and eBooks.
Commission: 40% plus an extra 5% in second-tier affiliates
Program #18: Typeform
If you’ve ever tried creating an online signup form, then you’ve most likely stumbled upon Typeform.
The SaaS product also allows users to conduct surveys, gather feedback, and even generate leads; all through a wide range of templates.
In case you’re interested in promoting the product to your audience, here are a few things you should know about the affiliate program:
- You don’t need to be a Typeform customer to join
- Upon acceptance, you’ll receive an affiliate link and rich marketing material
- Payments occur monthly through a direct deposit
- You can earn a 20% recurring commission
All of the above are great incentives for content monetization, so Typeform’s program seems like a great choice!
Commission: 20% on each referral
Program #19: Thinkific
Another eLearning SaaS on our list is Thinkific.
The platform allows users to easily create, manage and promote their online courses through a useful set of features.
Apart from spreading knowledge, they can even earn affiliate income through Thinkific’s program.
It actually offers a 30% lifetime recurring commission on all monthly and annual plans, thus allowing users to earn up to $1,700 per referral, every single year.
Interesting, right?
Another advantage is the fact that you – as a creator – can offer your audience a 1-month free trial of the platform’s Pro plan, which works as a great incentive for someone to use your affiliate link.
Commission: 30% recurring commission
Program #20: Kajabi
Our last SaaS company on this list is Kajabi, another powerful eLearning platform.
With Kajabi, users can create awesome online courses, membership programs, communities, and even podcasts.
If you decide to become a partner of Kajabi and promote the product, you can earn a 30% commission on each sale you generate through your unique affiliate link.
You’ll also be equipped with any marketing material you need, in order to take your affiliate campaigns to the next level.
Commission: 30% per sale made
Program #21: Payoneer
Payoneer is a leading payment platform for all kinds of business owners, offering safe bank transfers and fund management.
As an affiliate, by spreading the word about the company’s payment services, you can earn high commissions and have access to detailed analytics about your performance.
Plus, you’ll have a team of expert account managers at your disposal for any help you might need in real-time!
Commission: The commissions offered to affiliates by Payoneer aren’t publicly available as of 4/27/2022. Feel free to contact Payoneer directly to get more information.
Program #22: NordVPN
NordVPN is one of the most popular VPN services out there, with millions of customers worldwide.
As you’ve already assumed, considering it’s a B2C software, it takes advantage of affiliate marketing as one of the ways of expanding its user base.
As an affiliate yourself, what you earn is based on the subscription plan the customers you refer purchase.
To be precise:
- 100% commission for new-signups on 1-month offers (+30% for renewals)
- 40% commission for new-signups on 6-month offers (+30% for renewals)
- 40% commission for new-signups on 1-year offers (+30% for renewals)
- 100% commission for new-signups on 2-month offers (+30% for renewals)
Not bad, right?
Also, considering the strong brand NordVPN has built over the years, your promotional activities have a higher chance of converting, thus providing you with more affiliate revenue!
Needless to say that you’ll have dedicated affiliate managers at your disposal, to guide you step-by-step along the process with tutorials and more.
It’s safe to say that the company offers a great affiliate program for someone to opt for.
Commission: Up to 100% for new sign-ups and 30% for renewals
Now that we’ve seen our full list of affiliate programs, we truly hope you’ve found the right one(s) for you.
In the following part, we’re going to show you – as a business – how to recruit affiliates by conducting a simple competitor analysis.
Program #23: OnePageCRM
OnePageCRM is the first action-focused CRM in the world. This unique system turns a customer database into a dynamic to-do list with tasks and reminders next to every contact.
OnePageCRM’s Affiliate Program is great for beginners. It is free, takes just 5 minutes to apply, and there are no earning limitations.
This Program can also be interesting for experienced affiliates who want to promote a unique product. OnePageCRM is the only CRM that was built on Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity principles and developed a unique Next Actions sales method.
Even if you’ve never used this CRM before, you can easily join the Program. The company also provides affiliates with free marketing materials and a pleasant onboarding experience.
Commission: 20% recurring commissions for every referral that subscribes to a paid plan after the trial period
Step-by-Step Process for Affiliate Recruitment
As promised, in this last part of our guide we’re going to talk about the affiliate recruitment process.
By using 2 tools, Respona and Ahrefs, we’re going to show you how to find potential affiliates and reach out to them, proposing a collaboration.
Step #1: Find competitors
The first step is to find a competing website and enter its homepage URL into Ahref’s site explorer.
Once you’re in the website’s overview, go ahead and select Backlinks from the list on your left.
You’ll then be presented with a list of all the pages linking to your selected domain, as well as information about them.
Click on Nofollow, then on Sponsored, and find links that have one of the following identifiers:
- Aff
- Ref
- Rid
- Refid
Each website usually has one of them; in our case it’s the “ref” identifier.
In order to find all of those pages, insert “ref” into the Word or Phrase filter.
Ahref’s automations will then weed out any sponsored links that aren’t useful to us and present a list of the ones we want.
You can then select Export to export the whole list of referring pages in CSV format; this file will be useful for us in the next step.
Let’s get into it.
Step #2: Upload files to Respona
Assuming you’ve downloaded the CSV file, feel free to open it in an Excel or Google Sheets file.
Author’s Note: Delete all columns except for “Referring Page Title” and “Referring Page URL”.
You should then save the file in CSV format by selecting
File > Download > Comma-separated values (.csv)
Once you’ve downloaded it, you can head over to Respona and import the CSV file.
Make sure you’ve created a new campaign first and then select Import; this will give you the chance to upload any CSV file you like.
You can then click on Continue and allow Resona to finish processing the files.
Once it’s done, simply select Finish.
It’s as simple as that!
We then need to create our email sequence.
Step #3: Create email sequence
In this step we need to create the emails Respona will automatically send to our contacts.
Here’s a template you can use:
Subject: Subject
Hey {First Name}
My name is [Name] and I am a [Job Title] at [Company Name]—[Something about the company].
Since you’re into [Topic], you’ll already have heard about [Company Name].
I’m reaching out to let you know that we’re actively looking for more affiliates that could help us further expand our reach and raise awareness among new audiences.
We’re already working with people like [Affiliate Name], who made {Commision} in {Month/Quarter/Year} with us.
What do you think? Could we get you on board as well?
Let’s set up a call to discuss it further — here’s a link to my calendar: [Link to Calendar]
Thanks,
{Name}
Once you’re happy with the template above – or whatever you go for – feel free to select Confirm Contact to move on to the next step.
Step #4: Find contact information
In this part, Respona will automatically find all the necessary contact information on our list’s websites.
We can choose whether we want to find:
- The writer of the article only if they work for the website
- Ignore the writer and find X persons working for the website
- Only find the writer of the article and ignore other employees
Plus, let’s specify the positions and seniorities we want our points of contact to have.
When ready, simply select Find contacts.
The tool will proceed to find information for as many contacts as possible, so we can reach out to them through email.
All you have to do next is assign opportunities; this means selecting a contact and clicking on Get Email.
Once you’ve done that for all opportunities, simply click on Personalize to personalize the email template we created earlier.
When you’re done personalizing, select Verify & Launch on the top right corner and your email outreach campaign will be sent.
Affiliate recruitment can be as simple as that!
Overall, whatever affiliate platform you’re using, like Commission Junction or Rakuten, as well as whichever affiliate program from our list above you go for, it’s important to have overall knowledge of affiliate marketing.
From how it works and its benefits, to the best programs and how to recruit affiliates to grow your business.
Link building cheat sheet
Now Over to You
We’ve reached the end of our affiliate program list and also saw what affiliate marketing is, how it works, as well as what benefits it provides.
Last but not least, we saw a simple step-by-step process for effective affiliate recruitment.
If you’d like to take full advantage of Respona’s capabilities in terms of affiliate recruitment, email outreach, and more, don’t hesitate to book a live demo with us.
Thanks for reading!
