Want to earn some extra income or even make a full-time living? Don’t know how to start your business? Look no further than joining an affiliate program! Check out our list of top 10 affiliate marketing programs for beginners!
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to start your business and learning how to do it is crucial to your success as an online entrepreneur. You don’t need any startup budget, there are no business expenses, no worries about profitability — all you have to do is just join an affiliate program and promote their products or services to your audience.
Let’s dive into the basics of affiliate marketing and take a look at the list of top 10 affiliate marketing programs for beginners.
What’s affiliate marketing and how does it work?
Affiliate marketing is an advertising model in which a company pays third-party publishers for generating traffic or leads to their products or services and taking the desired action.
The third-party publishers, also known as affiliates, are incentivized to earn a commission for providing a specific result, be it sales, leads, etc.
The result is tracked with an affiliate link, which helps to monitor the number of clicks, typically using cookies. The cookie tracks the user, as well as validates purchases and conversions thanks to its ‘length’ or ‘cookie life’. As a result, if the users perform the desired action within a certain period, an affiliate earns a commission.
So the flow is simple — the higher your performance is, the more you get. Sounds easy, but with so many programs to choose from, it’s so easy to get lost. You need to consider your options first, and going through the list of top affiliate marketing programs is the best way to start.
Affiliate marketing programs to choose from
1) Amazon Associates
Points to consider:
- Commission rate: from 1 to 10%
- Cookie life: 24 hours
- Pros: well-known reputation, competitive commissions
- Cons: varying commission rates
Amazon is a renowned online shopping platform that boasts probably one of the biggest affiliate marketing programs in the world that helps product creators and marketers monetize their traffic.
Thanks to Amazon’s brand reputation, the conversion rate is high. However, the commission rates depend on the industry and can often change. Amazon’s weakness is that its cookie life only lasts 24 hours. But it’s extendable to 90 days as long as the customers add a product to their cart. Ultimately, it’s one of the best affiliate marketing programs for beginners. Just recommend products and you’ll earn your commissions!
2) eBay Partner Network
Points to consider:
- Commission rate: from 1% to 4%
- Cookie life: 24 hours
- Pros: generous customer bonuses, brand reputation, great variety of products
- Cons: short cookie life
eBay is an eCommerce platform that offers an online auction model where users can bid and buy listed products. It has over 25 million active sellers, 182 million active buyers, and 300 categories to choose from.
Not surprisingly, it has one of the best affiliate marketing programs for those who live and breathe e-commerce. The amount of commissions you can earn depends on the product category. However, cookies only last 24 hours.
3) Shopify
Points to consider:
- Commission: up to 200% commission after a referral has been an active subscriber for 2 months
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Pros: recurring and non-recurring commissions, priority partner support
- Cons: high competition
Shopify is a market leader in the drop-shipping industry that has over 2 million merchants worldwide. That’s a great platform to start!
If your audience is all about e-commerce, their affiliate program might well be the best choice for you. Shopify’s Affiliate Program is a network of entrepreneurs, educators, influencers, and creators who send referrals to Shopify. Affiliates may earn a staggering 200% commission on the cost of a monthly subscription! The main drawback of this program is high competition.
4) Synder Partner Program
Points to consider:
- Commission: up to 20%
- Cookie life: 90 days
- Pros: early access to updates, guest posting, direct collaborations (open for Tier 3 Affiliates), access to exclusive content
- Cons: available only for users from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Western Europe (France)
Synder is a 5-star rated, best-selling eCommerce accounting software that thousands of businesses trust to do their books. This accounting platform allows you to automate your finance management, store info from multiple sales channels and payment gateways in one source of truth, and provides better and faster reporting for your business.
Synder’s Partner Program gives content creators, marketing agencies, accountants, and eCommerce specialists a transparent opportunity to earn by sharing information about Synder. What defines Synder from other affiliate marketing programs is that they provide partners with a huge base of resources, easy-to-go affiliate program onboarding, and generous bonuses for active affiliates.
Earn by sharing — it’s as simple as that! Get your referral link now and earn 20% of the recurring revenue for each new customer!
5) ClickBank
Points to consider:
- Commission: up to 75%
- Cookie life: 60 days
- Pros: high commissions, cookie duration, recurring commissions
- Cons: lots of low-quality products, lots of competition
ClickBank is an affiliate network with 20 years of history that offers digital info products and serves as a marketplace for both people who create products and affiliates.
Their affiliate program is known for offering some of the highest commission rates. Competition for popular products is fierce, but the program boasts some of the highest commission rates on the market.
ClickBank obviously has one of the top affiliate marketing programs for beginners who are just testing affiliate marketing waters.
6) Fiverr Affiliates
Points to consider:
- Commission rate: 10%
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Pros: generous payouts, no referral limit, lifetime attribution
- Cons: commissions are limited to first-time referrals
Fiverr is a globally recognized marketplace for freelancers, and the Fiverr Affiliate Program is a great opportunity for those who desire to make money online. You can target a whopping 160 countries to promote your product or services, therefore it has one of the highest commission rates. Sign-up is easy and you don’t even need to have a website which is a requirement for most affiliate programs. However, keep in mind that you’ll only earn commissions for new first-time buyers. If an existing member uses your link, you won’t receive a payout.
7) Tripadvisor Affiliate Program
Points to consider:
- Commission rate: minimum 50%
- Cookie life: 24 hours
- Pros: high-paying commission, 14-day referral window
- Cons: short cookie life
Tripadvisor is the world’s largest travel guidance platform, loved and trusted by hundreds of millions of people each month.
Tripadvisor’s affiliate program is ideal for content publishers in search of a steady stream of commissions by adding links to their content. The program features an up to 75% conversion rate, making it one of the best affiliate marketing programs for profit on this list. There’s no booking required, the user just needs to click out from Tripadvisor to any of the hotel booking partners. However, the cookie tracker only lasts for a day.
8) Grammarly Affiliate Program
Points to consider:
- Commission rate: 20–30%
- Cookie life: 90 days
- Pros: increased payouts, exclusive discounts
- Cons: non-recurring payments
Grammarly is a proofreading tool and plagiarism checker trusted by more than 10 million active users. Wide arsenal of high-quality features makes Grammarly indispensable for writing and editing.
Grammarly’s affiliate program offers many bonuses, ranging from $0.20 for free trial registrations to $25 first-time signup bonuses, which makes it one of the best affiliate programs for beginners.
What’s more, all premium upgrades are worth $20 per sale and if you manage to refer someone via your affiliate link, you’ll get 10% out of their lifetime earnings. Not bad, right? The only notable downside is that Grammarly doesn’t have a recurring payment model.
9) Coursera Affiliate Program
Points to consider:
- Commission rate: up to 45%
- Cookie life: 30 days
- Pros: access to an exclusive newsletter, commissions from an already registered user
- Cons: non-recurring commissions, transactions are limited to specific courses
Coursera offers access to online education through partnership with the best universities and organizations in the world.
Their affiliate program is good for those who want to popularize e-learning by promoting courses and different educational materials. You can earn up to 45% commission on 4,000+ courses and specializations. This affiliate marketing program allows you to get paid from an already registered user. With that being said, commissions are non-recurring, which means that they only commission the first month’s transaction.
10) Sephora Affiliate Program
Points to consider:
- Commission rate: up to 10%
- Cookie life: 24 hours
- Pros: good commissions, exclusive offers for affiliates
- Cons: applications take time to be approved, short cookie length
If you’re into beauty and fashion and have a beauty website, Sephora has the ideal affiliate marketing program for you. The retailer offers for promotion more than 13,000 top-quality and prestige beauty products, ranging from mass-market to luxury and niche brands.
The sign-up process for their affiliate program is easy and free, but applications take time to approve. One more drawback you should be aware of is that Sephora has a 1-day last touch cookie.
Bottom line
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize your blog or website, especially when you don’t sell anything yourself. Joining an affiliate program gives you access to new exclusive content, secures special deals for your audience, and earns you more money. All at the same time!
Think about a product or service that best resonates with your audience, and give it a try. The perks of the best affiliate marketing programs can’t be ignored. Kick-off your career as a successful affiliate!
To multiply your efforts with affiliate marketing, you need a trustee ad tracking solution, because each click matters. RedTrack is an all-in-one software that will help you monitor the performance of your advertising efforts and report it to your partners!
