AFFILIATE MARKETING GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

 

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

• 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