Affiliate marketing is a reliable way to make a full-time income that is perfect for newbies that want to get started making money online
The affiliates do not necessarily have to own the products they sell, but only need to place their respective affiliate links on the social media platforms or websites that belong to them.
If you are new to affiliate marketing here is a simple video that will give you an overview
Benefits of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing frees the marketer from the need to handle all the relevant administrative tasks that are related to the selling of the goods and services being promoted.
That’s because it is the merchants themselves who carry out all the logistics involved, which includes product sales, promotions, processing of payments, responding to customer orders, and the shipping of the merchandise.
The affiliate simply sits back and wait for the commission$ to roll in.
The Role of Affiliate Programs
Affiliate networks and affiliate programs are those that are designed to oversee programs for merchants.
They handle all the tasks involved and provide tracking and reporting to their respective affiliates in order to accurately keeping track of their revenues.
They also assist the affiliates in determining if the products or services are generating maximum results; This will aid the affiliates in identifying the kinds of products they ought to specialize in and how to maximize their revenues.
The Most Popular Affiliate Programs
The following are the most popular affiliate programs at the moment (in no particular order):
1) LinkShare
Comprising over 10 million affiliate partnerships worldwide, LinkShare is the world’s largest affiliate network. It also ranks top in support quality, strength, and international capabilities. It offers 2,500+ affiliate programs and grants its users the freedom to determine if they want each aspect of their affiliate channel managed for them or not. It also lets its users manage their own program by use of the company’s services and support options.
2) Commission Junction
Commission Junction is the largest affiliate network in North America; Although it has a global presence too. It is the second largest of the top 20 affiliate networks.
Its outstanding trait is its ability to balance the relationships that exist between the network itself, the merchants, and the affiliates.
The company is based in California, USA and is owned by ValueClick Inc. CJ offers a few services, which includes, media, affiliate, and tracking. Subscribers are given the options to choose from company-managed or self-managed affiliate relationships.
Other than the ordinary pay-per-action programs, it also offers the more convenient pay-per-call program to assure its affiliates of commissions for all the leads they generate.
This greatly monetizes any pre-existing ads besides expanding the promotional online and offline campaigns.
3) ShareASale
This Chicago-based affiliate program has well over 2,500 merchant programs. It currently ranks position 3 and is famed for being the best-performance marketing network in the world today.
It features some of the top brands such as PS Print and HootSuite…to name a few. It has received innumerable accolades and excellent reviews. Its reputation, security, customer service, ethics, and ease of commission payment have been particularly identified to be outstanding.
4)Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is the fourth largest affiliate program in the world. Its reporting system, which is well known for surpassing even those of bigger networks, is its outstanding feature.
The program is one of the largest and the most diverse of all those under consideration. Its parent company, Amazon.com, offers several products that fit within various niches.
This gives affiliates a wide variety of choices which they may use to monetize their blogs or websites. Its commissions are issued out on a pay-per-sale basis.
5) Google Affiliate Network
Google’s affiliate network assist advertisers to increase their online conversions rate based on performance.
It also makes it possible for publishers to monetize their traffic with affiliate advertisements.
Its commissions are paid out on a pay-per-action basis.
Affiliates earn money by driving conversions, sales or leads.
Prospective users are required to open a Google AdSense account in order to post ads to their affiliate websites or blogs and to also facilitate affiliate payments.
Final Thoughts
Having said all that, each person must ascertain which is their most favorite affiliate program for them. This could be based on profit or ease of use…whatever.
To arrive at the best one, users are strongly advised to test each of the aforementioned affiliate programs to ascertain whether they fit within their niche or audience
This is all great information since I’m looking to add more affiliate programs and my business. Currently I’m only using Amazon. My question would be, is there a way to look at which businesses/websites is hosted by each affiliate?
Nicole,
Thanks for your response, the programs do have a list of all the merchants.
I just became an Amazon affiliate myself! I’m looking forward to wear that can take me, and hoping to gain more partnerships in the future! Thanks for the info video 🙂
Kelli,
You are most welcome and good luck. Thanks for visiting.