AFFILIATE MARKETING GUIDE
FOR BEGINNERS
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning money
(commissions) every time you promote a company’s products or services and drive
a sale. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry
and it’s by far the best way to monetize your website or blog — unless you
have your own products and services to sell. You only get paid every
time you drive a sale, just like a commission-only sales representative. The
idea behind it is that you promote other people’s products, often through an
affiliate network, earning a commission if people actually end up buying. This
is done in form of revenue sharing.
If you have a content rich website
then there are hundreds of thousands of affiliate programs and affiliate
networks available on the internet that can give you good monthly revenue.
One very important thing here is
that your website must be rich in content and must have high traffic to give
you the desired revenue.
Affiliate Programs & Affiliate
Networks Examplified.
Affiliate program is a contract between
an advertiser and a publisher. For instance, if I’ve a created an eBook and I am
promoting and selling it via my blog, I can as well generate additional income
by inviting my blog readers to promote it in exchange for a commission.
For example, if you referred a buyer
for my newly created eBook then I offer you a 50% commission on each sale.
If you refer more people to me then you make more income.
That’s why affiliate marketing is
also known as performance marketing. And it’s a win-win, right?
Now if I have the resources then I
can run an affiliate program by myself — within my own blog or website — and
then it called an in-house affiliate program. But if I don’t have
the resources or don’t want to manage it myself then I can sign up as an
advertiser on an affiliate network.
An affiliate network is a hub that
connects an advertiser and a publisher. In other words, it’s a hub
for thousands of affiliate programs on the web.
All the affiliate networks have
their own tracking, reporting, and payment system. And they all may be focusing
different niche, location, promotions, etc. with a pool of advertisers — and
that makes all of them different.
Sometimes an advertiser can have
presence on multiple affiliate networks and still have their own in-house
affiliate program.
Perhaps the best thing about an
affiliate network is that when you join one of them, you get immediate access
to hundreds of thousands of affiliate programs on the web — that you couldn’t
reach otherwise.
Now, don’t get confused with
affiliate network and ad network. For instance, Google AdSense is NOT an
affiliate network but rather an ad network that pays you for “clicks” and not
for “sales”.
So if you referred a sale worth $100
to an advertiser on Google AdSense (who already have an in-house affiliate
program that pays 50% commission) then you might have made $1 or maybe $2
with Google AdSense. In this case, Google pays you and not the advertiser. But
if you did it as an affiliate marketer then your earnings could have been $50.
Affiliate Programs: What You Need To
Know?
Different affiliate programs
(in-house and the ones on various affiliate networks) follows different models.
An affiliate program model can be: Cost Per Action
(CPA), Cost Per Lead (CPL), Cost Per Sale (CPS), or
even Cost Per Click (CPC).
- Cost Per Action (CPA) model pays you for specific
actions and it can be simple form submissions, downloads, surveys, etc.
- Cost Per Lead (CPL) model pays for leads and it’s
usually a “signup” that involves email or credit card verification
(because it makes the lead more valuable).
- Cost Per Sale (CPS) model pays for actual sales
and it means they share a percentage of sale value with you.
- Cost Per Click (CPC) model as you probably know
pays for “clicks” — no matter whether your referral traffic helped
them generate a lead/sale or not.
Best Performing Affiliate Networks
There are various ways to measure
the performance of Affiliate Networks, these include:
·
Brand popularity
·
Alexa traffic rank
·
User experience
Below are some of the best
performing affiliate Networks based on the above ranking.
I have also indicated whether they
have a referral program. If an affiliate network has a referral program then it
means that you can refer other publishers to them and earn a percentage
(or a one-time bonus) of their income.
1.
CJ Affiliate
CJ Affiliate was formerly known as Commission Junction (or simply CJ)
and it’s the most popular affiliate network (and also my personal
favorite).
It’s one of the oldest affiliate
network and that’s why it’s the preferred affiliate network of Fortune 500
companies and major online retailers.
Commission Junction is my personal
favorite as they have an unmatched pool of advertisers that you can’t find
elsewhere. Also, I’m very much happy with their user interface, payment system
and the customer support — ever since I joined their network back in 2005.
And what’s more
exciting about CJ is that advertisers often pay premium
commission rates for CJ publishers when compared to other affiliate
networks or even their own in-house affiliate program.
Now one thing that I hate about CJ
is their tracking system. It’s not real-time and sometimes it doesn’t track
sales/leads at all. So it’s very much possible that you might miss
commissions for some sales/leads that you have generated.
Anyway, I’m still happy as the
payouts are not delayed unlike any other affiliate or ad networks.
For instance, if you have referred a
sale in January then you can get paid in February itself. I said “CAN”
as it depends upon the affiliate program that you are promoting.
That is, CJ reviews all the
leads/sales that you have generated in the previous month on or around the 10th
day of every month. So, an advertiser can approve a transaction or extend it
for 30 days (or even deny) on that day.
It’s applicable to almost any
affiliate network out there as most of the things that we buy online involves a
money-back guarantee. So if the customer that you have referred asked for a
money-back then the advertiser can void your transaction.
If the transaction is approved then
you get paid in the same month itself — around 20th of every month. It
basically means if an advertiser do not extend transactions, then you will get
paid on the 20th of a month itself even if you referred the sale on the 30th of
the previous month.
However, if you are a new publisher
then it should take an additional month or so as they monitor new
publishers pretty closely.
It should take some time to get
familiar with the interface, reports, etc. of CJ.com. But it’s applicable to
all networks as they all have their own way of reporting and
tracking system.
And their customer support is
excellent. You get one-to-one support via email or phone and you also get
dedicated affiliate account representatives when you are generating sales/leads
consistently to an advertiser.
One more thing… it’s free to
join the CJ Network and no special website requirements are there. Once
your application is approved, you can simply sign in to CJ Account
Manager and apply to different affiliate programs.
Some of them approve publishers
immediately while others approve manually after reviewing your
account/website. But you need a quality website to get approval for
individual affiliate programs as big brands on the CJ Network approve
publishers manually.
However, you can contact the
advertiser directly if you got denied but believe that you can promote them in
a great way.
And it’s worth to mention that CJ
deactivates a publisher account if it doesn’t generate a commissionable
transaction for six months. That’s not all, you will also be charged a $10
dormant account fee.
It means that, if you referred a
sale and earned $10 in commissions then it will be reversed if you didn’t
generate any income over the next 6 months. But there’s no negative billing and
you won’t be charged ever for keeping your account idle and not generating any
sale at all.
- Minimum Payment Amount: $100 (Check); $50 (Direct
Deposit)
- Payment Method(s): Check, Direct Deposit
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS, CPC
- Referral Program: No
2.
ShareASale
This
is perhaps the most admired
affiliate network with over 15,000 affiliate programs and 200,000+ publishers.
There are so many affiliate programs on the web that are exclusive to
ShareASale. So if you are unable to find an advertiser in CJ then most probably
it’s there at ShareASale.
And ShareASale also has a lot of
similarities with CJ like user experience, payment, dormant account policy, and
affiliate program types. So yes, all inactive ShareASale accounts will be
deactivated if its balance is less than $25.
Or, you will be charged $25 per
month (if the account balance is over $25) until it becomes zero and is then
closed.
And if there is something that
I particularly like about ShareASale then it’s their tracking system. It’s
real-time and the payment system is also very reliable (just like CJ).
- Minimum Payment Amount: $50
- Payment Method(s): Check, Direct Deposit
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS, CPC
- Referral Program: Yes
3.
Rakuten Affiliate Network
This company was was formerly known
as LinkShare and is dubbed as the number one affiliate network — for
several years now — in affiliate surveys.
Anyway, it doesn’t make much sense to
me as the number of advertisers on LinkShare is far less when compared to CJ
(or even ShareASale).
However, there are few
hundred brands who prefer LinkShare and they do not have an affiliate
program elsewhere.
- Minimum Payment Amount: $50
- Payment Method(s): Check, Direct Deposit, PayPal
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS, CPC
- Referral Program: No
4.
AWIN (formerly Affiliate Window & Zanox)
Awin
is one of the best affiliate network in Europe with an advertiser and publisher
base of over 13,000 and 100,000 respectively. It’s got a user-friendly
interface with real-time reporting.
AWIN even supports deep linking so
that you can link to any web page on the advertiser’s website using your
affiliate link.
Also, they pay publishers twice
every month and the minimum payment amount is also low (when compared to other
ad networks).
- Minimum Payment Amount: $20/£20
- Payment Method(s): Check, Direct Deposit, Wire Transfer
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS, CPC
- Referral Program: Yes
5.
Impact Radius
Impact formerly Impact Radius) is an
affiliate marketing platform that’s growing its market share. Today, an
increasing number of advertisers are closing their in-house affiliate programs
in favor of Impact Radius. So if you are a blogger or an affiliate marketer
then sooner or later you will need an Impact account. The best thing about
Impact Marketplace is that you will find a lot of brands that you love to
promote.
- Minimum Payment Amount: $50
- Payment Method(s): Wire Transfer
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS
- Referral Program: No
6.
Tradedoubler
This is perhaps the most popular
affiliate network in Europe with over 2,000 advertisers. If you live in U.S.
then I guess you can focus on the above networks itself as they are
more popular in the U.S.
Because there’s a very good
chance that you won’t find an American retailer in Tradedoubler and
likewise if you live in Europe then your favorite retailer could be
there in Tradedoubler (and not in any of those American networks).
- Minimum Payment Amount: €70
- Payment Method(s): Direct Deposit
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS
- Referral Program: Unknown
7. Refersion
Marketplace
- Payment Method(s): PayPal, Gift Cards, Wire
Transfer, Venmo
- Programs Offered: CPS
- Referral Program: No
8.
AffiliaXe
- Minimum Payment Amount: $100
- Payment Method(s): Wire Transfer, Check, PayPal,
Payoneer, Global ACH, Debit Card
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS
- Referral Program: Unknown
9.
Lemonads
The Best CPA Affiliate Networks
A CPA affiliate network is somewhat
different from the affiliate networks listed above. However, you can see
that almost all the affiliate networks listed above offers CPA programs and
yet they were not classified as a “CPA Network”.
The reason is pretty simple… an
affiliate program on a CPA affiliate network never pays for clicks or
impressions — but there are a lot of affiliate programs on CJ.com that pays for
clicks (though it’s very rare).
Also, the primary goal of an
affiliate program on a CPA affiliate network is to get a lead and the primary
goal of an affiliate program on any other affiliate network is to get a
sale. There’s a difference, eh?
On CPA affiliate networks, the
advertisers pay for specific action. It can be sale, a survey, form submission,
download, or anything that requires an action by the visitor so that it can be
tracked and can be paid for.
That said, most of the CPA networks
also offers a ton of CPL and CPS affiliate programs as well. It’s just
that they are more recognized for their “CPA Offers”.
For instance, if I’m an advertiser
and I have a “toolbar” to promote then the best platform could be a CPA
network — and never a premium affiliate network like CJ.com, or ShareASale.com
— to build a userbase in no time.
Again, if I’m a publisher who owns a
high-traffic file sharing site then CPA affiliate programs should generate the
maximum affiliate income (obviously, Google AdSense and CJ.com tends to deny
such websites).
As all the CPA networks that I
have cherry-picked are similar in nature, so I will just avoid the
descriptions and make the list simpler.
10.
MaxBounty
- Minimum Payment Amount: $100
- Payment Method(s): Check, Direct Deposit, Wire
Transfer, PayPal, Payoneer, Bitcoin
- Referral Program: Yes
11.
PeerFly
- Minimum Payment Amount: $50
- Payment Method(s): Check, Direct Deposit, Wire
Transfer, PayPal, Payoneer
- Referral Program: Yes
12.
Perform[cb] / Clickbooth
![Perform[cb]](file:///C:/Users/eesha/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image024.jpg)
- Minimum Payment Amount: $50
- Payment Method(s): Check, PayPal
- Referral Program: Yes
The
Best Automated Affiliate Networks
All the affiliate networks that are
listed so far are DIY networks. Sort of. That is, you have to sign up as a
publisher, apply for individual affiliate programs and then manage it.
Now there’s another category of
affiliate networks, and let’s just call it “automated affiliate network”. Wondering Why?
Because it literally automates all the processes like advertiser selection, affiliate
link placement, reporting, etc.
It works like this. Instead of
partnering with advertisers they have partnered with various affiliate networks
like CJ, ShareASale, etc. so that when a publisher is linking to a merchant
(using direct links) it converts the regular links into affiliate links.
And the best thing is… if you are
already using an affiliate link then it doesn’t convert at all. It’s that easy.
All you need to do is paste a code on all the web pages that you want to
monetize. If you are a web developer then you know that it takes just minutes.
;)
13.
Skimlinks
Skimlinks is a ‘cool’ automated affiliate networks that
gives access to over 20,000 merchants. And it basically means that, when you
join any of them you get immediate access to over 20,000 affiliate programs
without the hassles like sign up, application, affiliate code generation, etc.
There’s absolutely no cost to join
Skimlinks and it works on a revenue split model. They cut 25% of the affiliate
income generated from your website. Skimlinks also offers a referral program
and they give you 35% of what they earn for a year from all your referrals.
- Minimum Payment Amount: $10
- Payment Method(s): Direct Deposit, PayPal
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS, CPC
- Referral Program: Yes
14.
AvantLink
- Minimum Payment Amount: $50
- Payment Method(s): PayPal, Direct Deposit
- Programs Offered: CPA, CPL, CPS
- Referral Program: No
