According to Vox, a micro-influencer, defined as someone with 10,000 to 50,000 followers, can earn anywhere between $40,000 and $100,000 per year. If you’re wondering which is the top affiliate program for marketers, you’re in the right place!
Affiliate programs aren’t just dedicated to TikTok influencers pushing t-shirt merch. There are a number of marketing tools out there looking for experienced marketers to spread the word about their solutions. Let’s discover the highest paying affiliate program for marketers!
Best Affiliate Program for Marketers in 2022
1. Vista Social
Commission: 20% from all payments made by users that registered through your affiliate link.
Vista Social is a modern social media management platform for agencies and businesses. The platform features powerful tools for publishing, engagement, analytics, listening, and reviews.
Vista Social loves collaborating with and supporting fellow social media educators. Its partner program is focused on social media influencers and brand partners with a demonstrable approach to sharing the benefits of Vista Social with their audience. It is perfect if your audience is people who use social media for business, either for their own brands or for the brands they work for.
Once you register for Vista Social affiliate program for marketers, you will receive a link that you can share with your audience. You will then earn a 20% commission for up to 12 months from all payments made by users that registered through your affiliate link. Other benefits of Vista Social’s affiliate program are a user-friendly interface, fast, free sign-up, and support for affiliates. In addition, the platform empowers you with all the tools, content, and selling materials you need to create successful affiliate campaigns.
2. Fiverr
Commission: $15-$150, depending on what category your buyer purchases from.
Fiverr is an online platform for freelance services with low-cost providers from all over the world. From learning new skills to covering your freelancing logistics, Fiverr has a product fit for every audience. The company offers services in every digital category and suggests different payouts depending on what Fiverr product or service you choose to promote.
As an affiliate marketer, you can get different commissions ($15-$150) depending on what category your buyer purchases from. You will qualify for CPA commissions once your buyer purchases on Fiverr for the first time.
3. GetResponse
Commission: $100 per sale referred, or 33% of recurring subscriptions.
As a powerful tool for email marketing, landing pages, website creation, and more, GetResponse is an excellent fit for marketers and online creators who want to promote their work and products. The program is free to join and open to bloggers, YouTubers, online marketers, digital entrepreneurs, and more. After signing up, you will get a unique and shareable affiliate link to use immediately.
The recurring affiliate program for marketers suits people who want to build a long-term passive monthly income. Affiliates will receive commissions for as long as their referrals stay paying customers. The bounty program suits affiliates who want to get paid a larger sum upfront.
4. Unbounce
Commission: 20% of recurring revenue for every customer you refer.
Unbounce is the AI-powered landing page builder with smart features that let businesses create high-performing marketing campaigns. Its partner program allows you to earn 20% of the recurring revenue for every new customer you refer to Unbounce. Moreover, using a referral link, your referrals will get an exclusive 20% off their first three months.
While everyone is welcome to sign up, the company prefers professional marketers and agencies, bloggers with a marketing audience, and Unbounce’s biggest fans.
5. Typeform
Commission: 20% recurring commission.
Typeform, a guru of forms, surveys, and quizzes that people enjoy answering, offers its own affiliate program for marketers. The company suggests spreading the word about Typeform and earning a 20% recurring referral commission. If approved, you can create an account on their affiliate’s platform, Partnerstack. Once on Partnerstack, you will instantly receive your affiliate link and can start referring immediately. Free users, you refer, count as referrals whenever they pay for a monthly or annual plan. To add more, you do not have to be a customer of Typeform or VideoAsk to become an affiliate.
6. Thinkific
Commission: 30% recurring commission.
Thinkific is a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their own online courses. Thinkific allows clients to decide their course business based on what’s best for them and their audience.
The company invites you to become an affiliate partner and earn recurring commissions by sharing the power of Thinkific with your audience. You are an ideal candidate if you are a content creator, business leader, or entrepreneur who wants to add new revenue streams. Thinkific affiliate partners earn up to $1,700 per referral every year.
7. Sendinblue
Commission: €5 when a referred user creates a free account + €100 if that user buys a subscription.
Sendinblue is an all-in-one digital marketing platform that empowers businesses and agencies to build relationships through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns and automation.
Sendinblue’s affiliate program has two different streams: one for agencies and one for bloggers. If you join the promotional program as a blogger or publisher, you can earn a 5€ commission when someone creates an account on Sendinblue. If that user buys a subscription, you will receive an additional 100€.
Note: The program is also open to the United States. Your commission will be converted based on currency rates at the time of the payment.
8. Shopify
Commission: 200% commission after a referral has been an active subscriber for two months.
Shopify is a top eCommerce platform and a great partner brand for affiliates with online entrepreneur audiences. It has all the tools and features to build an online store. Shopify invites you to become a Shopify affiliate to access exclusive opportunities and earn a commission through their referral program.
You need an active website, an established audience, and create original content to apply. Joining the program itself is free. Affiliates earn a 200% commission on the cost of a monthly subscription and get priority support for their Shopify store.
9. Amazon Associates
Commission: 1-10% (depending on the product category).
Amazon is one of the most popular online shopping platforms and a good choice for affiliate marketing beginners. While Amazon marketplace takes care of most of the sales process, your task is to bring new customers from external traffic sources to the Amazon site.
Amazon’s affiliate marketing program suggests signing up to their program, sharing products with your audience, and earning up to 10% in associate commissions from qualifying purchases.
10. eBay Partner Network
Commission: 1-4% (depending on the product category).
eBay’s affiliate program shares almost the same advantages as Amazon’s one. eBay is a famous brand with high conversion rates and a diverse selection of products. So, you can earn money by driving traffic and prompting sales across one of the world’s most varied marketplaces.
The platform provides the solutions to build ads and campaigns, drive traffic to increase revenue, monitor performance, and optimize results. In addition, depending on the product category, you can earn up to 4% from qualifying purchases.
How to Become an Affiliate Marketer in 2022?
Whether you are writing blog posts or running ads, it is essential to know where to start. So, follow these six steps to make a name for yourself in the affiliate marketing space.
1. Find your zone of expertise.
Choosing a niche is the first and often the most challenging step when starting affiliate marketing efforts. Picking up the wrong niche or speaking to too many niches may lead to marketing failures. In addition, this vital step dictates the quality of engagement from your follower base. If you do not believe in what you are promoting, your followers won’t either.
It should be easy for you if you are already an influencer with a specific audience. You will promote the products and services that interest your followers in the particular niche.
If you are a beginner, ask yourself the following questions:
- What topics am I passionate about (social media management, social listening, Canva designs)?
- Do people search for this chosen niche?
- Will demand for the selected niche stay consistent?
- Are there many competitors within the niche?
- Is there an affiliate program within this niche to join?
2. Evaluate market demand.
Once you decide on your affiliate niche, it is essential to evaluate its market demand. As a result, you will better understand what items the audience is ready to pay for. With this information, you will be more efficient in promoting the products and earning commissions.
Consider Google Trends to evaluate the demand for a product. The service will help you explore what the world is searching for. Moreover, you will get a regional breakdown and information on related queries.
For example, let’s take a look at how many Google users search for the phrase ‘washing machine.’
As we can see, it is relatively consistent for the past 12 months. This means you have a good potential to capitalize on the promotion of this particular product through affiliate marketing. This simple test takes a few minutes and shows which affiliate products to sell.
3. Analyze competitors.
Analyzing competition in your selected niche is another essential step to becoming a successful affiliate marketer. To check how competitive the specific Google searches are, try SpyFu. This simple keyword research tool will get you access to keyword spy tools, PPC competitor monitoring, keyword grouper, competitor shared keywords, and much more.
Let’s keep checking the same ‘washing machine’ example to see how it works.
Today, the market offers numerous competitor analysis tools you can choose from. For example, you can take Simialrweb.com or SEM Rush to check out similar websites ranking for your exact keywords.
4. Choose an affiliate program.
When discussing affiliate programs for marketers, it is essential to understand the difference between them and affiliate networks.
An affiliate network is a digital marketplace that connects affiliate marketers and the merchants who want their products promoted and sold.
An affiliate/partner program is an agreement in which the merchants pay the affiliate marketers a commission for sending sales their way. This can be achieved through product integration, web content, or social media. Again, there is no middle man or 3rd-party platform involved.
Our list of the best affiliate marketing programs above shows the ones where advertisers and publishers collaborate directly with each other. But, you can still consider an affiliate network if that suits your needs.
When choosing an affiliate program, check out its reputation, the sum of commissions you are likely to earn, sign-up and support processes, and more. Note that your program is the bridge that helps you find profitable partnerships, so it should be selected thoroughly.
5. Define your affiliate marketing channels.
While the exact methods you use here will differ from affiliate to affiliate, the most popular ones are:
- Your own website. You can build a community of loyal followers to share your affiliate links with your own website and blog. Moreover, if you are looking for affiliate marketing jobs in the future, having your affiliate site is an excellent resume builder.
- Social media. Affiliate marketing is very popular on social media. It is an excellent solution to promote the products to the follower base, and influencers have an advantage over others here.
- Email marketing. If you can boast of a good email list, you will be able to promote products and services to customers via this channel. Often, affiliate marketers use a combination of blogging and email affiliate marketing to achieve the best results.
From here, it is the moment to start crafting the content you want to share with your audience.
6. Start creating top-notch content.
Creating high-quality, relevant, and SEO-optimized content is crucial not only for affiliate marketing. But, it will help you stand out in the affiliate marketing space. Ensure creating content that answers your followers’ questions and solves their problems.
The most popular content strategies among affiliate markets are:
- Product reviews
- Blog/social media posts
- Guides
Creating top-notch posts, ads, and other content should include engaging text information, videos and high-quality images, custom links or banner ads to refer to the products you promote, and follow SEO-best practices.
Should You Pay to Join an Affiliate Program?
While joining an affiliate program is usually free, promoting a product may take much effort and resources. For example, you can spend some money on running paid ads or paying for web hosting to build your website.
At the same time, some affiliate marketing methods do not require you to spend money. Such strategies include:
- Promoting products in Facebook groups. Start commenting on users’ posts and recommending affiliate products/services to earn commissions.
- Sharing affiliate links in emails. If you have an email list, do not hesitate to include links in your newsletters that take people to the merchant’s website.
- Adding affiliate links to YouTube videos. Including a link to the affiliate product in the description under your video will not cost you anything.
While it is an option for a beginner, if you plan to grow in affiliate marketing, you should expect investments. You will invest in traffic, landing page builders, paid platforms with creatives and images, and others.
Can You Join an Affiliate Program Without a Website?
Absolutely! Having a website is just one option when it comes to effective channels to do affiliate marketing. If you do not have a website, you can focus on some other ways to make money as an affiliate without a website.
- Use your existing traffic source (online communities/forums/content publishing platforms). Whether it is Reddit, Youtube, or anything else that brings traffic – use it! Traffic is the only thing that matters here.
- Leverage social media. Social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more) are excellent traffic resources. You can run paid ad campaigns to send targeted traffic directly to a seller’s page.
- Use email marketing. Create an effective email marketing campaign, add affiliate links in the middle, and you are good to go.
- Join affiliate programs for marketers that do not require having a website. For example, Vista Social affiliate program is an excellent solution for affiliate marketers with no website. Its primary focus is on social media influencers and brand partners with an audience to share the company’s benefits. Promoting the company on social media, online communities, and content publishing platforms is a good start in the business.
So, if you do not have a website, but you have an audience, you can find many alternative methods to succeed in affiliate marketing.
Conclusion
For influencers, affiliate marketing is a perfect way to monetize the following they have spent countless hours building. Depending on your niche, audience, and personality, various affiliate programs for marketers may be a good fit for you.
No matter your choice, the steps in this post will help start your affiliate marketing journey today. If you have a little knowledge, much motivation, and a good traffic source, you are ready to go!