What is the best affiliate marketing Program?

Affiliate marketing programs are easy to find on the internet, it’s simple enough to sign up for most of them the hard part is knowing which affiliate marketing program will benefit your business the most. In this post I’m going to cover what is the best affiliate marketing program?

If you are here because you have just started in affiliate marketing or perhaps you have done a lot of hard work building a blog and you want to make money from it, you want to know what is the best affiliate program to suit your website or blog, then stick with me.

What is the difference between affiliate programs and affiliate networks?

People often want to know the difference between affiliate programs and affiliate networks, basically an affiliate program originates from the company or brand while an affiliate network is a third party platform where affiliate programs are offered. An affiliate network will have on offer thousands of companies products so if you are an affiliate you will deal with the network rather than the company or brand.

A good example of a company with an affiliate program would be Amazon or Ebay, if you join their associates program you have access to sell all of the products on their platforms.

Amazon associates program

Amazon’s associates program is a large part of their business they operate a fee structure based around sales volume, in other words the more affiliate links that are clicked on that result in more sales the more commission is paid, please note that not all products are included in this commission structure.

Up to 2017 this was the case that those affiliates selling the most got a higher commission rate but now it is the case that a flat commission structure is in place, here are examples of Amazon fee structure 2020.

Most of the other categories pay around 4% commission to affiliates. Getting paid by Amazon happens in a few ways, you can chose to be paid by Amazon gift that you can use to buy products on the platform, second choice and providing you have earned a minimum of $10 can be paid directly into your bank account or by cheque if you live in the USA. Payment for sales takes 60 days.

Amazon associate cookies are set up to determine who clicked in your product affiliate link and when, so if someone clicks and buys within 24 hours you get the commission but you don’t get any commission if the sales occur after the 24-hour period. (a bummer)

Ebay Partner network

The Ebay affiliate program is called the Ebay partner network, as an affiliate you are important to them and paid a significant portion of Ebay seller fees, the conversion rates on Ebay are high because it is a trusted marketplace.

They sell used products and new products, as an affiliate you can sell a large and varied range of products, commissions are in the 50-70% category, the cookie length is only one day, payments are by wire transfer or PayPal.

Ebay partner network on the other hand pay much better even though the cookie length is only 24 hours, I recommend that you look at affiliate programs that pay better and have a much longer cookie length, otherwise you are closing sales and money.

Wealthy affiliate program

The Wealthy affiliate program is one that I recommend because the online Entrepreneur certification course teaches you in a simple way how to become a successful affiliate marketer in whatever niche that you choose.

Wealthy affiliate is in my mind the best way to learn from other successful affiliate marketers as well as people who are just beginning on their journey as an affiliate marketer. Wealthy affiliate also offers an affiliate program that pays some good commissions, more on that here.

The online Entrepreneur certification course gives into great detail here is a snapshot of what is in store for you,

The Entrepreneur course is broken into seven modules each one is carefully done to give you the maximum knowledge to start an online business, here is a brief synopsis of what each module will teach you:

1. Getting your business rolling
Every business has to start with an idea, the first module was written to help you understand where to look for business ideas and how to set up your website.
2. Content, keyword and conversion
Creating content will take up most of your time, this lesson gives into how to create content using keywords and how to create content that converts into sales.
3. Giving your site social value
With the advent of social media and its place in society, this lesson will teach you how to leverage social media to your best advantage.
4. The search engines
Knowing how the search engines work is a must for all aspiring affiliate marketers, you will enjoy this module.
5. How to scale successful PPC campaigns is a lesson that will be valuable as your site starts to produce an income.
Read what people are saying about the Wealthy Affiliate program on this page.

What is an affiliate marketing program?

An affiliate marketing program is a popular strategy that thousands of companies use to drive traffic to their product offering and increase revenue, the program is beneficial for both the company (vendor) and the affiliate marketer in terms of sales and revenue. Here are some statistics that bear this out:

• Over 80% of brands use affiliate marketing to drive sales in the USA
• More than 84% of online publishers leverage affiliate marketing and it is set to increase
• Each year in the USA the spend on affiliate marketing increases by more than 10%, by the end of this year more than 6.8 billion dollars will be spent on promoting affiliate sales.

What is a good affiliate marketing program?

I speak as an affiliate marketer, in my opinion a good affiliate marketing program should have a number of parts to it that are beneficial to both parties, for example:
• A good commission structures
• Long cookie length/life
• Large choice of banners, text links and html code
• Simple to understand dashboard
• Dedicated affiliate manager
• On time payment
• Bonus incentive for more sales

What are affiliate marketers?

Affiliate marketers are self-employed and are paid for connecting new clients and customers to an online business by creating content that drives traffic to the affiliates site or blog, from there sales happen when the website’s visitors click on an affiliate link, banner ad, or email response.

Tracking of affiliate sales is usually done through large affiliate networks like Unwin, Share a sale, or Rakuten, here is a list of my top 10 affiliate networks.

1. Clickbank
2. Wealthy affiliate
3. Shareasale
4. CJ Affiliate
5. Flexoffers
6. Rakuten marketing
7. Ebay partner network
8. Amazon associates program
9. Jaxxy keyword tool affiliate
10. Semrush affiliate program

What makes affiliate marketing work?

Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick scheme, it is a keyword targeted and SEO optimized way to attract traffic to a website that has affiliate links and banners displayed.

The best affiliate marketing programs work because they a flexible and logical method of delivering large amounts of traffic to affiliate offers, but what other reasons are there to make affiliate marketing work?

To make a consistent income from affiliate marketing one needs to conduct product research, keyword research, brand research, traffic patterns and social media influencers. The affiliate marketer must engage with the brands that he promotes and create content around those brands and products that is engaging and interesting.

The affiliate marketer must know the skills of SEO or search engine optimization in order to use it to promote his or hers chosen brand or products.

Affiliate marketing is a popular way to create an income, it may not work for every online business, to make a steady income from affiliate marketing requires commitment, knowledge, dedication and a never say die attitude no matter what over a long period of time.

Those that start affiliate marketing and stop after a few months don’t make money whereas those people that do some affiliate marketing training and follow through in the training make money (in some cases many thousands of dollars) in the longer term.

So, what are the advantages of affiliate marketing?

In my humble opinion affiliate marketing can be done successfully by people who are passionate about their niche, be they blogger, information junkies, entrepreneurs, stay at home moms, retirees, or just plain good communicators, all it takes is knowledge, vision and determination to succeed, there are a number of advantages to making it as an affiliate marketer:

• Low start-up costs ($600)
• Low overheads (work from home)
• No products to buy
• Its flexible because you set your own hours
• Passive income, even when you are asleep
• Extra income, if you already work the extra income helps

What the disadvantages to affiliate marketing ?

• Competition: affiliate marketing has become so popular that tens of thousands of people have started.
• Time: Building traffic to any website organically takes time, a lot of time learning the ropes and finding what works and what doesn’t.
• Products are not yours: The affiliate products belong to the vendor do you are totally dependent on them to deliver and keep the customer happy.
• Not getting paid: Believe it or not some companies cock up and don’t pay affiliates, check out feedback before promoting.
• Ownership: As an affiliate you never own the customer, yes you get paid but you won’t have access to their contact details which means you can’t sell to them again.

How to be successful at affiliate marketing

If it was going to be easy to find success as an affiliate marketer wouldn’t everybody be doing it? Making a steady income can be challenging however as your affiliate site grows and becomes established so will your income, affiliate marketing is incremental the more work you put in the more traffic you will generate.

More website traffic leads to better rankings with Google and other search engines, higher rankings means more people are finding your site organically, meaning you don’t have to pay for natural traffic.

More traffic means more opportunities for clicks on affiliate links and more money in the bank, here are my 10 top tips for success as an affiliate marketer.

1. Don’t just sign up for affiliate programs until you know what is the best affiliate marketing program for you.

Make sure you have checked out the product and the company behind it, know who you are getting into bed with.
2. You need to build trust with your website visitors, don’t just recommend a product without knowing everything about it, pros and cons, it’s important that you give the correct information because your good name depends on it.
3. Use mixed ads, don’t just put banner ads on every post, mix it up by using html code and text links.
4. Use a good email response service like to collect marketing emails
5. Branding is important so chose affiliate links that closely match your niche content and blog
6. Know and understand your target market
7. Know how to do SEO
8. Know how to write unique content
9. Know the law, always tell your website visitors that if they purchase a product or service you will get paid a commission without the price of that product being affected.
10. Most affiliate marketers use several programs to generate income, chances are you will end up doing the same, keep a spreadsheet of each affiliate program including the url, the username, the password, any other relevant information.

Keep a track of your affiliate earnings what program is doing well and what isn’t, you can adjust your site accordingly.

Just like any conventional business affiliate marketing will take time, patience and sustained effort, stick with it, in the long run you will be glad you did.

Conclusion

I hope that you have learned something from my post what is the best affiliate marketing program, you can be successful and make money at affiliate marketing provided you take the time to learn how to do it.

References
https://review42.com/affiliate-marketing-statistics/
https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/affiliate-marketing/#how-does-affiliate-marketing-work