No doubt, the affiliate marketing industry is a billion-dollar one and affiliate programs abound. Every day, newer and newer players are stepping into the court to cash in on the spoils.
According to reports by Statista, business expenditure on affiliate marketing will hit $8.2 billion in the United States alone by 2022. The most interesting aspect to this, there is no late coming. Whenever you arrive at the scene, you just jump right in and start earning.
In fact with affiliate marketing, there is no limit to the revenue you can accrue. It solely relies on the amount of work, time, and effort you put into it. To put things in perspective, in December 2017, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income made over $100,000 in affiliate commissions.
Successful affiliate website, The Wirecutter; earned an estimated $10 million in revenue, and was eventually sold to the New York Times for a whopping sum of $30 million. Also, in October 2019another affiliate marketer named Ryan Robinson reported over $19,000 in affiliate revenue.
While these affiliate success stories are meant to spur your interest in the business, choosing the right affiliate program is essential. As initially stated, affiliate programs abound. These programs differ in many ways and have different conditions attached to them.
Starting out with Affiliate Programs
Starting out with affiliate programs is pretty much easy. The bulk of the work such as creating a product, packaging, and shipping to the consumers has already been taken care of for you. What is required of you is to create enough awareness of the product to drive conversion. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s discuss the types of affiliate programs out there.
There are three types of affiliate programs to choose from.
High-Paying, Low-Volume Affiliate Programs
These affiliate programs are tailor-made for niche products with a high pay-out rate. There is a whole lot of competition for programs with high commissions and sometimes require an expert affiliate to undertake.
Since you’re most likely just starting out with affiliate marketing, it’s going to be a tough challenge to earn by competing against seasoned marketers with deep pockets.
An example is ConvertKit’s affiliate program. This program pays around $700 per month if affiliates send just 80 customers their way. However, as they sell CRM software for small business owners, there’s a limited pool of buyers.
Low-Paying, High-Volume Affiliate Programs
These affiliate programs are specifically designed for products with low pay-out rates but have a large consumer appeal. This type of affiliate program requires that affiliates drive huge traffic before they can enjoy sizeable pay-out.
On the good side; affiliate programs like this usually offer massive numbers of products to market. Another takeaway is that marketers often get commissions on the entire value of the purchase rather than just the product they recommended.
An example is Amazon’s affiliate program where marketers can earn up to 10% commissions on almost any product Amazon sells. For instance, the PS4 games; PS4 are quite popular and the average cost of a game is only around $50. Affiliate commissions on this are around $2–3 per sale. But if you drive hundreds of sales, you can multiply to get an idea of your earnings.
High-Paying, High-Volume Affiliate Programs
These affiliate programs are geared for products with mass appeal and at the same time, pay high commissions.
A popular example is credit cards. Almost everyone needs a credit card today and most people remain loyal to the company for years. Sometimes spanning a lifetime!
As with High-paying Low-volume affiliate programs, High-paying High-volume affiliate programs attract marketers with years of expertise. Competing against such is a high-risk adventure if you are just starting out with affiliate programs and marketing. The use of spammy tactics is also employed by some.
Forms of Affiliate Programs
The end goal of any affiliate program is to bring about conversion. The consumer doesn’t always have to buy a product for the affiliate to get a commission. All that is needed is for a conversion or a specified action to take place. And depending on the program, an affiliate’s contribution to the merchant’s sales can be determined by the agreed conversion action. These forms of affiliate programs include:
Pay per Sale Affiliate Programs
This is the standard affiliate marketing structure and is the most common. With this program, the merchant pays the affiliate a commission of the sale price after the consumer purchases the product as a result of the affiliate’s marketing strategies.
To simply put, the affiliate must get the consumer to buy the product before they are compensated for their effort.
Pay per Lead Affiliate Programs
This is a more complex system when compared to the pay per sale system. The Pay per lead program rewards the affiliate based on the conversion of leads.
The affiliate must convince the consumer to visit the merchant’s website and complete the desired action. This could be either filling out a contact form, signing up for a product trial, subscribing to a newsletter, or downloading software and files.
Pay per Click Affiliate Programs
This program focuses on incentivizing traffic. The affiliate has to redirect consumers from their platform to the merchant’s website.
This means the affiliate must engage the consumer to move from the affiliate’s site to the merchant’s site. The affiliate is paid based on the web traffic they redirect.
Choosing your Niche
Now that you’ve understood the types of affiliate programs available and the forms of affiliate program conversions, the next step is choosing your niche. Many will assume picking an affiliate program is next but the fact is that your niche will mostly define your success or failure in affiliate marketing.
If you are starting affiliate marketing today, the truth is you will be facing a ton of competition. To stand any chance of success, it’s advisable to niche down.
Choosing a topic that focuses mainly on a specific category works always. For instance, the “fashion industry” is a pretty large category and instead of creating content vaguely on that, you can be more specific, like “lingerie fashion”.
Having a focused topic will help you build a more relevant audience base and potentially help you increase conversion. Choosing a focus topic requires you to have an interest in the said topic.
If you’re passionate about a topic, it becomes much easier to forge ahead when the game gets tough. Many affiliates wither out due to a lack of consistency.
A quick tip: many worry about not being an expert in the field but according to Gary Vaynerchuk, “document, don’t create.” Documenting what you’ve learned on the field is awesome content in itself. This ultimately attracts audiences who have interests in that niche, unlike adverts which are saturated with special effects.
Should you want to outsource your content creation, then it’s advisable to work with seasoned professionals in that niche. Experts can help you create unique and high-quality content that can translate to more engagements with visitors, increased traffic, and ultimately more affiliate sales.
After you master the arts and crafts of your niche and have built an appreciable number of followership, then you can expand into other aspects of your niche.
How to Find Affiliate Programs
After researching and choosing a niche, the next step is finding an affiliate program. The answer; there are numerous ways of doing this but we’re going to share five awesome ways to locate companies with affiliate programs.
Using the major Affiliate Networks
The most direct manner of finding affiliate programs is to join an affiliate network. This requires taking a plunge into the diverse affiliate networks out there and actively searches for the company’s affiliate programs.
Intending affiliates can go to any of these networks and simply sign up as an affiliate. Then log in to your newly created affiliate account and immediately start viewing the available affiliate programs. Each network is quite different, but a common denominator is that they all allow affiliates to search for the company’s programs. Affiliates can use each network’s keyword search and category tools to locate affiliate programs.
Some major players in the affiliate network business include Rakuten Marketing (sometimes called LinkShare), ShareASale (now owned by Awin), Pepperjam, and CJ Affiliate by Conversant. For a comprehensive list, see our article on 15 ClickBank alternatives.
Additionally, it’s a common practice for companies to advertise their affiliate programs within an affiliate network. This gives you another avenue to discover affiliate programs. These advertised programs are pushed to the front of various search queries within the network as well as in promotional emails.
Actively reaching out to Companies via Websites or mail
Another way to find affiliate programs is by actively reaching out to the company you wish to market their products. You can reach out to companies and inquire about their affiliate programs. Using this method means you already have a particular company you wish to market for.
Most companies that run an affiliate program will include a link within their website page that links to more information about their affiliate program. This link could send potential affiliates directly to the signup page for the program on the specific affiliate network they run on or it could send you to a landing page diving into more detail about becoming an affiliate for that merchant.
Checking the company’s website can be the best way of finding affiliate programs. This is true if the company runs an in-house affiliate program and is not part of an affiliate network.
A leading example of such a company is Amazon.com. Not only do they run one of the largest affiliate programs today, but they also have one of the largest in-house programs. Their program known as Amazon Associates program is where you can promote Amazon and not through one of the main affiliate networks.
Using Affiliate Websites
Although regarded as non-traditional, this is an effective way to locating companies that have affiliate programs. All you have to do is to check the companies which these affiliate sites are promoting.
Affiliate websites like SlickDeals, RetailMeNot, and Ebates are a good place to start your search. By going through any of these sites, affiliates can come across tons of companies that have affiliate programs and are being promoted on those sites.
Also, observing which companies other affiliate sites are promoting can give you an idea of which companies have excellent affiliate programs that convert well and pay handsomely. Sites like these are multi-million dollar businesses and they wouldn’t be wasting their time promoting the company’s affiliate programs that do not provide enough returns for them.
Using Affiliate Program Directories
You can as well find various affiliate programs online by using affiliate program directories. Websites such as HighPayingAffiliatePrograms.com was created to serve as a database for all the major affiliate programs in the world.
These sites can be of immense resources for finding programs especially specific niche. Some well-paying niches are so unpopular that newbie affiliates often skip over or miss. Other times, you just might not have heard about it.
Using Social Media Groups
Often times, people ask around for referrals when looking for just about anything or anyone. So why not apply it to your search for an affiliate program. It follows the same principle and great affiliate programs rarely have a hiding spot.
Affiliate marketers congregate on numerous social media platforms like Facebook groups, social forums, and subreddits. These places serve as a pleasant location to find awesome programs. For example, the subreddit /r/affiliatemarketing currently has in excess of over 18,000 subscribers that post and comment about various affiliate programs and affiliate marketing strategies.
The Facebook group Affiliate Café is a much smaller and more exclusive example of such social gatherings. It is the perfect example of a community of people on social media who discuss affiliate programs and marketing frequently.
Other countless affiliate marketing forums exists and they offer people the chance of discussing related topics. Find one, join one and you might be on your way to finding an awesome affiliate program to work with.
Conclusion
Affiliate programs abound all and around you. You just need to know where to look and at what time to look. There are chances that these options will be overwhelming. And with tons of programs offering great returns but the reality is always far from that.
Take your time, research your niche and always choose an affiliate program that best fits into your affiliate marketing career. It’s also advisable to choose niches that one is knowledgeable in. Affiliate marketing involves you making recommendations to potential consumers of products.
This way, you minimize any potential risk to yourself and your reputation. Focus on creating awesome content and build your followership. With time and dedication, your affiliate program will make good earnings for you.
