The Ultimate Guide to Affiliate Marketing & the Best Affiliate Programs to Join

Imagine how easy it would be to make money online if all you needed was a website. You don’t have to create your own products or offer a service. Does this seem appealing to you?

Welcome to the world of affiliate marketing.

According to Statista, business spending on affiliate marketing will hit $8.2 billion in the U.S by 2022.

Now, you must know how affiliate marketing is booming and its future. In fact, many affiliate marketers are making six-figure passive income using this method.

In this comprehensive guide, we will be sharing every nitty-gritty of affiliate marketing and how much you can earn as an affiliate.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing in which the affiliate marketer receives a commission for every sale that the affiliate marketer drives to the merchant.

In other words, an affiliate marketer is paid by the merchant whenever a customer clicks on the affiliate link that is unique for each affiliate.

Commissions are some percentage of the total sales, and they can be fixed or varied.

You can work for specific companies or affiliate networks and choose which programs are best suited for you to promote.

You can promote their affiliate links on your website or social media, on the newsletter, and wherever you are allowed to distribute them.

After achieving a minimum payment threshold, the affiliate merchant will pay you via PayPal, bank transfer or other payment modes. 

There are various ways to do affiliate marketing and make passive income.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Each affiliate is given a unique URL by the merchant so that they can track who is responsible for a sale.

When someone clicks on that link, a little file known as a cookie is stored on their device.

An affiliate cookie will help you with two things:

• First, it assists the merchant in attributing the sale to the right affiliate.
• These cookies hold an expiration period. If the customer purchases the product within this expiration period and even purchases using the other link, the affiliate with this link will receive the sale.

Let's start with an example of the Scalenut Affiliate Program.

Imagine that you are a Scalenut Affiliate, and you have promoted Scalenut on your blog.

Now, a reader decides to purchase Scalenut’s services by clicking on the unique link generated to you.

But they realize that they have some urgent calls and decide to make the purchase later on. The good news is that you will be compensated for 60-days of clicking that link.

In other words, if the reader purchases Scalenut’s services within 60 days of clicking the affiliate link, you will receive a commission.

Why is Affiliate Marketing Lucrative?

Here are some of the major benefits of Affiliate Marketing:

Low Ongoing Costs

Affiliates do not need to pay any upfront costs such as signup fees or set up costs. The only investment an affiliate makes is in time and effort put into promoting the merchant's product.

Unlike other marketing methods, such as PPC advertising, which forces you to pay for every click leading to your website, this marketing approach makes costs easy to manage and does not disrupt your cash flow.

Affiliate marketing also helps ensure that you only part with money when sales are made.

Varied Income Sources

Affiliates can make a significant amount of money from selling products ranging from e-commerce goods to physical products and services. There is no limit on what an affiliate can sell as long as it falls within the merchant’s niche.

Lost Cost of Startup

To participate in an affiliate program, you do not need an advertising team or purchase ad space.

All you need is to create quality content and generate the right traffic quantity & quality. 

Targeted Traffic

Because you handpick your affiliates, you can be sure that the traffic coming to your site is from people interested in your product or service. This is because affiliates who connect with your brand will most likely have people in their circle of influence who will benefit from it.

High ROI

The majority of marketing tactics have been shown to have a worse return on investment than affiliate marketing.

One of the major benefits is that most affiliate marketing programs have high commission rates and lower spending costs. This means that the affiliate marketing partners can make a good amount of money with a higher ROI.

How to Become an Affiliate Marketer?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the best way to become an affiliate marketer depends on your skills and experience. However, some tips on how to become an affiliate marketer include keeping track of current trends and studying consumer behavior to develop product hypotheses.

Additionally, it's important to have a good understanding of the affiliate marketing process so that you can set up effective links and tracking mechanisms for your affiliates.

Find the Affiliate Marketing Program in Your Industry

The most crucial factor to bear in mind while you brainstorm goods or browse affiliate sites is that the product should be aligned with your audience or the audience you wish to build. Is it anything that your target audience would find interesting? Is it relevant to your field of expertise?

For example, a food blogger won't promote beauty products on its blog. Cookware, meal sets, gourmet ingredients, and even aprons are examples of things that would be more appropriate.

Make sure the product or service you're offering is compatible with the platform you're using to promote it.

Also, keep in mind that the affiliate program you are promoting should fit that platform. For example, an affiliate program with more images would be the best fit on Instagram.

Create a Plan for Promotion

Affiliate marketing revenue can eventually become a source of passive income, but you'll need to put in some work upfront. The quality of your review will determine the success of your program.

The best way to sell a product is by giving out your opinion based on your experience as if it is a personal review. The more genuine the review, the more your readers will trust you and buy on your opinion. 

Create a Product Guide or Tutorial

While the size of your audience largely determines your affiliate marketing performance, delivering a tutorial on the offer is another approach to creating higher-converting traffic.

People frequently use Google to find "how-to" information, such as "how to save money for business" or "how to design a room."

If you provide a tutorial that answers a searcher's problem while also clearly demonstrating the product's worth, your referral will make more sense in context, and the consumer will be more inclined to buy the product you're recommending.

Do not Forget SEO

SEO is the key to getting visible to search engines. Thus, there is no success without adopting SEO in your affiliate marketing strategy.

Using the relevant keywords that satisfy the search intent and adopting a mindful SEO strategy will help with the enhanced visibility of your content and boost your chances of getting higher sales.

Consequently, higher sales would mean higher affiliate commissions.

Create a Distribution Strategy

Share your promotional content on your website or social media sites once you've finished writing it. You can create an email marketing campaign if you have an email list.

You can also create a resources page on your website to promote the tools that offer high commissions.

Best Ways to Promote as Affiliate

If you are an affiliate, you might need different methods to promote the products and services. Thus, there are various ways to promote your merchant’s products and gain higher commissions.  

Bloggers & Influencers

Being an affiliate, you can collaborate with bloggers or social media influencers in your industry to find a better insight into buyer personas. For example, if you are an affiliate in the kitchenware niche, reaching out to recipe bloggers or YouTube influencers and asking if they'd feature the product you are promoting as a "recommended tool" in their next post might be a good idea.

Product Reviews

If you promote a more expensive or specialty product or service, it's likely that most of your audience will need to do some research before buying.

The best idea is to research the review sites to know what content they are sharing.

Coupon Sites

One of the best ways to get more sales and leads is to offer discounts and coupons for your audience.

As an affiliate, you can request special discounts from the merchants for your audience and build trust. 

Email Marketing

You don't want to ruin the product image by sending mass emails to people who aren't interested in the products or services being promoted by you, but this could be an effective method if done correctly.

Now that you have these affiliate marketing strategies in mind, these are some of the best affiliate marketing programs that pay higher or recurring commissions.

Best Marketing & Business Tools Affiliate Programs

There are a few affiliate programs to consider if you want to market your products or services.

When selecting an affiliate network, keep in mind the platforms where your target audience spends most of their time. For example, while researching new items, does your buyer persona read blog articles, cruise through Facebook, or use search engines?

Let's drill down into the best affiliate programs to join:

1. Scalenut

Commission- Up tp 60% lifetime commissions.

Cookie life- 60 days.

Scalenut offers a powerful affiliate program where affiliates can receive commissions from 40%-60%. When you register as an affiliate, you will get a 40% commission in the first month.

And, when you generate the sales for 3 consecutive months, you will be promoted to the next tier that offers a 50% commission. For the 4th month, the commission you may receive will be 50%.

After you've completed 25 sales in total, you will be promoted to the third tier with a 60% commission. After 100 sales using your unique link, you will receive a lifetime commission of up to 60%.

When you join Scalenut's affiliate program, you receive access to their AI copywriter as well as the long-form content creator. Besides this, you get 1-on-1 communication with the customer support team.

Overall, Scalenut provides an amazing opportunity for the affiliates to earn commissions regularly.

How to join the Scalenut affiliate program? 

It takes even less than a minute to join the Scalenut affiliate program. All you need is to click on this link and fill out the form.

After filling out the form, write a small paragraph on how you plan to promote Scalenut. Once sent, the Scalenut team will reach out to you soon.

2. SendinBlue

Commission- €5 when a user registers a free account, plus €100 if the user purchases a subscription.

Cookie duration- 90 days.

Sendinblue is a suite platform that allows organizations to communicate with customers via email, SMS, chat, marketing automation, CRM, and more. With over 175,000 users worldwide, this user-friendly tool is rapidly gaining popularity.

There are two types of affiliate programs: agencies and bloggers. 

Sendinblue offers a free plan and low-cost pricing that makes it an excellent revenue-generating option for email marketers.

You'll be paid €100 for each paying customer you suggest, and you'll be a member of a reputable affiliate network.

3. Convertkit

Commission- 30% recurring.

Cookie duration- 30 days.

Convertkit offers a lifetime commission of 30% to every client or webinar subscriber. 

The revenue potential is highly appealing, with options ranging from $29 per month to $2,000+, and joining the program is completely free. However, the program does not provide any special offers or discounts for any products that the affiliate may promote.

4. Fiverr

Commission- For Fiverr CPA, $15-50; for Fiverr Hybrid, $10 CPA + 10% RevShare; and for every Fiverr Learn course order, 30%.

Cookie duration- 30 days.

Fiverr (a freelancing marketplace with services like IT, Digital Marketing and others), Fiverr Pro (access to hand-vetted talent trusted by large companies), and Fiverr Learn are all services and plans you might promote on your website or blog.

Fiverr is best for you if you work with clients that need a freelancer for marketing, design, or computer skills, or if you write a blog for entrepreneurs and want to promote their “Learn” version.

With over 5.5 million members, the site provides affiliates with a dashboard to plan and monitor campaigns and creative assets to help advertise their services.

5. Unbounce

Commission- 20% recurring revenue.

Cookie duration- 90 days.

Unbounce has one of the most lucrative affiliate programs offering a 20% recurring commission for every referred customer.

They also give special promo codes to the affiliates to provide a 20% additional discount for the purchase of the first three months.

Besides this, it also gives you a partner coach and a dedicated dashboard to track the progress and provides you with training resources.

6. Constant Contact

Commission- $5 for a free trial and $105 for a new referral.

Cookie duration- 120 days.

Constant contact is best for small businesses, bloggers and startups. 

Constant Contact provides features such as Instagram and Facebook ad campaign creation, email marketing automation, follow-up emails. 

Affiliates can earn $5 for the qualified leads $105 for a complete subscription. They also offer 

marketing materials, a tracking dashboard, and 1-1 support to the affiliates.

7. Outgrow Affiliate Program

Commission- 20% upfront and 20% recurring.

Cookie duration- 30 days.

Outgrow is a content marketers suite that provides quizzes and surveys, forms, chatbots, and polls. It also helps the business with interactive content solutions that give the right intent and increase user engagement and conversions. 

You can earn an upfront commission and a 20% commission on recurring payments as an affiliate.

A major USP is their 24/7 support.

8. SEMRush

Commission- 40% recurring commission.

Cookie duration- 30-days.

SEMrush is a comprehensive SEO and SEM marketing solution that may help you improve your online presence and deliver actionable marketing data. It offers various tools like keyword research, link building, content optimization, and competitor and market analysis, using which you can target various audiences.

Its BeRush affiliate program allows you to market its tool to your audience and earn recurring cash, among other things.

9. Systeme.io

Commission- 40% lifetime commission.

Cookie duration- 180 days.

Systeme.io is an easy-to-use marketing platform that includes everything you'll need to start, grow, and scale your online business. Systeme.io is used by over 200,000 clients to design sales funnels, send unlimited emails, administer online courses and blogs, run affiliate programs, build websites, and automate practically every element of their marketing.

Systeme.io affiliates get 40% lifetime commissions on all subscriptions and course sales. In addition, if their referrals effectively promote the platform, they will receive a 5% second-tier commission.

With a monthly payout of over $100,000 to its affiliates and over $2,000,000 in total affiliate commissions received so far, this affiliate program has a lot of earning potential.

10. Shopify

Commission- 200% commission if the referred subscriber stays for 2 months.

Cookie duration- 30 days.

Shopify's affiliate program can be right for you if your audience is all about e-commerce and requires assistance setting up an online store. Affiliates earn a whopping 200% commission on the cost of a monthly subscription (up to $2,400 in commissions). You'll also receive a $2,000 reward payout if a referrer signs up for a Shopify Plus account.

You also get priority assistance for your own Shopify store and free Shopify material to promote as a Shopify Affiliate to your audience.

It is completely free to join the program.

11. Leadpages

Commission- 10% for Bronze, 40% for Silver and 50% recurring revenue for Gold.

Cookie duration- 30-days.

Leadpages is a platform that allows you to easily customize landing pages in order to collect contact information and increase conversion rates.

Only Leadpages customers are eligible to join their affiliate program. A lifetime commission of 30% is earned for each paying customer recommended. The monthly membership fee ranges from $25 to $200.

Leadpages will run special offers from time to time, such as a $5,000 bonus for affiliates who drive 10 or more purchases by a certain date. Banners, sidebar pictures, and social media-friendly links are available to all affiliates. Instead of sharing a link to a product page, you can share a unique link to a free content page (like a blog post or video).

12. WPEngine

Commission- $200 per signup.

Cookie duration- 180 days.

The ShareASale network hosts WPEngine's affiliate program. By recommending WP Engine plans, you can earn $200 per registration or 100% of the customer's first monthly payment, whichever is higher. You have access to special affiliate discounts that you may pass on to your customers.

You can also promote StudioPress themes and earn a 35 percent commission on any sales made. These purchases are tracked for 60 days using cookies.

WP Engine's affiliate program is two-tiered, which means you'll be compensated not only for introducing clients, but also for referring affiliates. You'll get $50 for each recommendation they send your way. 

This means that if your initial clients refer to another person, you will receive a $50 commission. 

While finding an audience willing to develop a new WordPress website may not be straightforward, if you do, the earnings can be substantial.

13. Bluehost

Commission- $65 per sale.

Cookie duration- 45 days.

Bluehost, a web hosting platform that hosts over 2 million websites, has a fantastic affiliate program for every business or blogger with hosting as one of their niche topics. Bluehost gives $65 to $130 per sale, depending on the subscription tier.

Best of all, joining their affiliate program is completely free. Bluehost provides unbiased and precise tracking breaking down your leads and sales.

14. Spocket

Commission- 20% per Bronze subscriber; 25% per Silver subscriber; 30% per Gold subscriber.

Cookie- 90 days.

Entrepreneurs can sell goods from tens of thousands of dropshipping vendors across the globe using Spocket, a dropshipping supplier, wholesaler, and distributor of high-quality American and European items.

You can earn up to $450 for each user you recommend to Spocket, and you'll continue to make money on their account as long as they remain a customer in their excellent affiliate program.

Their program will also equip you with the tools and resources you'll need to advertise their company effectively. This is a nice affiliate program to look into if your website visitors are entrepreneurs or run eCommerce firms.

15. Kinsta

Commission- $500 per referral and 10% commission.

Cookie duration- 60 days.

Kinsta's affiliate program gives a one-time reward followed by a monthly payout of 10%. Depending on the type of plan purchased by the referral, affiliates can earn up to $500 at first:

• Starter Plan: $30
• Pro Plan: $100
• Business Plan: $150
• Enterprise Plan: $500
  

While 10% may not seem like much, your referrals are likely to have a high lifetime value because of Kinsta's strong customer retention rate of 95%.

FAQs

Q. What is Amazon Associates' affiliate program?

Ans: Amazon Associates is a program that allows you to earn commissions by selling products on Amazon.com. When someone makes a purchase through an Amazon affiliate link, you will earn a commission on the sale. The commission percentage depends on the category of product that you are promoting. 

Q. What are the best Affiliate networks to join?

Ans: Some of the best Affiliate networks to join are Refersion, Clickbank, CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction), JVZoo, and eBay partner networks.

Q. Is being an affiliate worth it?

Ans: Only if you do it the right way. It is important to do extensive research before joining an affiliate program in a niche. Also, make sure the product that you are promoting has a demand. 

Q. What are the best Amazon products to promote as an affiliate?

Ans: Some of the best products to promote as an Amazon affiliate are Virtual Reality, Drones, 3D Printers, Phone Accessories, Wireless Chargers, and Home Automation.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing is a simple method to make money online by monetizing your content.

Affiliate marketing is changing as time goes on. Bloggers and email lists used to be the major ways to exchange affiliate links, but now influencers may make a lot of money advertising affiliate items thanks to social media.

Whatever approach you use, make sure the things you promote are relevant to your target market and that you avoid any unethical actions.

By joining the Scalenut affiliate program, you can get bigger benefits and a lifetime commitment.