Making money from blogging is a mystery to many people out there. A lot of them know that bloggers make money off of their blogs, but they aren’t sure how exactly bloggers make money. Ever heard of affiliate marketing programs?
This might blow your mind away: bloggers can make money from display ads, direct ads, affiliate products, courses, niche edits, sponsorship, guest posting, and digital products.
Are you familiar with affiliate marketing? It’s a simple money-making method for bloggers, YouTubers, creators, and marketers.
All you need is to join an affiliate marketing program, promote a product, and earn a commission when someone buys the product through your referral link – that’s affiliate marketing in a nutshell.
Sounds crazy! Right? Let’s explore more.
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What is meant by an affiliate marketing program?
Generally, an affiliate marketing program is a marketing software that allows companies to set up their affiliate programs so that marketers and affiliates can join in to promote their products and earn commissions.
There are two ways to set up affiliate marketing programs. A person or company can use affiliate marketing networks, such as ShareASale, ImpactRadius, ClickBank, Flexoffers, and others, to set up their affiliate program, or they can privately create their native affiliate program using third-party tools, such as FirstPromoter, Tolt, TrackDesk, Tapfiliate, and more.
In essence, an affiliate marketing program is an arrangement that allows affiliate marketers to promote the products and earn commissions on the sales.
However, it doesn’t happen so quickly. To get started with an affiliate marketing program, the affiliate marketer has to apply for an affiliate program and start promoting the products after being approved in the program.
Here’s an example:
Bonsai is a business management tool that provides CRM, invoicing, payments, project management, and other business solutions under the same umbrella.
They also have an affiliate program for bloggers, marketers, and creators.
All affiliate marketers have to do is sign up for their affiliate program and get started with it.
Side note: Try to buy the product and use it first before promoting it. Once you like the product, build a connection with the team or affiliate manager, and then start promoting it.
Top 20 best-paying affiliate marketing programs in 2024
Here are some of the best, high-paying affiliate marketing programs to check out in 2024 and beyond:
1. ContentStudio
ContentStudio is an all-in-one social media management dashboard that provides social media scheduling, content curation, workspaces, social media analytics, approval workflows, AI content generation, influencer discovery, and more. It’s a fantastic social media marketing tool for businesses, agencies, and influencers to run and manage multiple social media campaigns simultaneously. The pricing starts at $25 per month.
Affiliate commission: 30% recurring commission
Payout methods: Bank transfer
Payout Duration: 45 days
How to apply: Go through the affiliate page and sign up for the affiliate program.
Social Media Content Calendar Stay consistent and organized with Contentstudio’s social media content calendar for marketers and agencies.
2. Replug
Replug is a powerful link management tool that offers URL shortening, deep linking, bio links, retargeting, A/B testing, branded URLs, and more. It’s an excellent solution for social media marketers, digital marketing gurus, brands, and influencers who use social media and email marketing for content distribution. The pricing starts at $19 per month.
Affiliate commission: 30% recurring commission
Payout methods: Bank wire and PayPal
Payout Duration: 45 days
How to apply: Visit the Replug’s affiliate page and sign up for the program.
3. Usermaven
Usermaven is an excellent analytics tool for websites and applications. It provides a complete analytical toolkit to track, analyze, and report different user engagement and interaction activities. It’s a great alternative to Google Analytics for SAAS tool developers, bloggers, and website builders. Usermaven has a free plan, and the paid plans start at $14 per month.
Affiliate commission: 20% recurring commission
Payout methods: Bank wire
Payout Duration: 45 days
How to apply: Go to the Usermaven’s “Refer and Earn” section from “Account Settings” and sign up for the referral program to get started. Learn more about this by clicking here.
4. SkillShare
SkillShare is a top-tier online courses platform that offers a wide range of online courses across different categories. This online education platform gives a whopping 40% commission to the affiliates. It has a 7-day free trial before they charge you the amount. The monthly plan is priced at $29 per month, and the annual plan costs $99 per year.
Affiliate commission: 40% commission
Payout methods: Bank wire
Payout Duration: 30 days
How to apply: Go to SkillShare’s affiliate page and sign up for the affiliate program.
5. Voices.com
Voices.com is a trusted voice marketplace for finding talented voice artists for TV commercials, radio ads, social media content, and voiceovers. It’s a useful platform for marketers, brands, and agencies that actively create video and audio content and advertisements. The pricing depends on the job description – the average project cost is $215 per minute.
Affiliate commission: 50% commission
Payout methods: Bank wire
Payout Duration: 30 days
How to apply: Check out their affiliate page and sign up for their affiliate program.
6. Fiverr
Fiverr is a popular freelancing platform that connects freelancers with vendors, businesses, and agencies. It’s a gig-based platform that allows freelancers to create their gigs/offers to reach potential customers. It’s free for freelancers to use.
Affiliate commission: Up to 70%
Payout methods: Bank transfer/Payoneer
Payout Duration: 30 days
How to apply: Visit the Fiverr affiliate page and sign up for their affiliate program.
7. LowFruits
LowFruits is a keyword research tool for bloggers, affiliate marketers, and digital marketers. It’s a great tool for hunting low to high-competition keywords, discovering untapped niches, and analyzing SERP. LowFruits offers both annual and credit-based pricing. You can start with a $25 credit plan or try a $250 per year plan. LowFruits can be a fantastic alternative to top-tier, expensive SEO tools, such as Semrush and ahrefs.
Affiliate commission: 20% recurring commission
Payout methods: PayPal, Payoneer, and Wise
Payout Duration: N/A
How to apply: Check out the LowFruits affiliate page to apply for the affiliate program.
8. Keyword Chef
Keyword Chef is yet another widely known keyword research tool that helps bloggers and marketers discover keywords for targeting. The pricing starts at $29 per month. However, they also have “Pay As You Go” plans that start at $20. KeywordChef can be an excellent affiliate program for bloggers that target SEOs, bloggers, content writers, and digital marketers.
Affiliate commission: 20% recurring commission
Payout methods: Bank transfer
Payout Duration: N/A
How to apply: Visit this page and sign up for the affiliate program.
9. Koala AI
Koala AI is one of the best AI writing tools on the market. It lets users create blog posts, product round-ups, product reviews, YouTube videos, blog posts, and article rewriting. Moreover, it also has a chat feature that lets users interact with the AI and serves as a ChatGPT alternative. Users can choose between GTP 3.5 to 4.0 (Turbo) GPT versions. The pricing starts at $9 per month.
Affiliate commission: 30% recurring commission
Payout methods: PayPal and Wise
Payout duration: 30 days
How to apply: Sign up for the Koala AI affiliate program.
10. GeneratePress
GeneratePress is one of the best WordPress themes on the market. It has an easy-to-use, robust, and customizable framework for both beginners and advanced WordPress users. Bloggers, web developers, niche site builders, and agencies rave about this WordPress theme for many reasons. It costs $59 per year; you can buy a lifetime subscription for $259.
Affiliate commission: 30% commission
Payout methods: PayPal
Payout duration: 30 days
How to apply: Apply for the GeneratePress affiliate program.
11. AAWP
AAWP is a well-known Amazon affiliate WordPress plugin for affiliate marketers who want to monetize their blogs and niche websites with the Amazon Associates program. This plugin helps bloggers and affiliate marketers create easy and customizable product tables, comparison tables, and product boxes in WordPress. The pricing starts at $49 per year.
Affiliate commission: 20% commission
Payout methods: PayPal
Payout threshold: €100
How to apply: Visit the AAWP affiliate page to apply for the affiliate program.
12. QuillBot
QuillBot is a powerful AI-powered paraphrasing tool that improves your copy by paraphrasing the text. It also offers plagiarism and grammar checker tools for bloggers and marketers. The monthly plan costs $9.95. Moreover, they have tier-based commission; affiliates can earn up to 20% on the sales.
Affiliate commission: Up to 20% commission
Payout methods: PayPal, Stripe, and Direct Deposit
Payout date: 16th of the next month
How to apply: Visit the QuillBot affiliate page for more details.
13. Paymo
Paymo is an all-in-one project management system that lets users create projects, manage clients, and send invoices. It’s quite a useful tool for businesses, freelancers, and website developers. Paymo has a free plan with limited features, and the paid plans start at $5.9 per month.
Affiliate commission: Up to 15% commission
Payout methods: PayPal and Wise
Payout duration: 30 days
How to apply: Check out the Paymo affiliate section for details.
14. Affiliate Booster
Affiliate Booster is a powerful affiliate marketing tool for bloggers, niche website builders, and affiliate marketers. It offers a diverse variety of ready-made, customizable product boxes, comparison tables, product tables, and other affiliate product blocks. These responsive and SEO-friendly tables and boxes work with every WordPress theme (with Gutenberg functionality). Affiliate Booster has a free plan, but the paid plans start at $39 per year.
Affiliate commission: 30% commission
Payout methods: PayPal
Payout duration: 30 days
How to apply: Take a look at the Affiliate Booster affiliate page for more details.
15. Restream
Restream is an excellent live streaming platform that lets gamers and YouTubers stream their live content to 30+ channels simultaneously using the multistreaming feature. The streaming platforms include YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, TikTok, LinkedIn, and others. Restream has a free plan, but the paid plans start at $16 per month.
Affiliate commission: $10 commission
Payout methods: PayPal
Payout duration: 60+ days
How to apply: Check out the Restream referral page for details.
16. Kitchen.co
Kitchen.co is an advanced client management system that allows brands, agencies, and marketers to manage their client requests, tasks, messages, invoices, and file transfers in one place. It has a free plan, and the paid plans start at $29 per month.
Affiliate commission: 30% commission
Payout methods: PayPal
Payout duration: 30 days
How to apply: Visit the Kitchen.co affiliate page for more details.
17. Wondershare
Wondershare is a well-known software company that offers a wide range of software, such as video and photo editing tools, data management tools, PDF solutions, media converters, and much more. A lot of bloggers and affiliate marketers promote their software as they get a variety of software/tools to choose from. The prices vary from software to software.
Affiliate commission: 30% commission
Payout methods: PayPal
Payout duration: 30 days
How to apply: Visit the Wondershare affiliate page to learn more about their affiliate program.
18. Namecheap
Namecheap is a top-tier domain registrar that provides domain registration, web hosting, SSL certificates, and other products. Bloggers, influencers, and affiliate marketers usually promote Namecheap for domain and web hosting. The prices depend on the product, but overall, they have reasonable pricing across the board.
Affiliate commission: Up to 35% commission
Payout methods: Bank wire and PayPal
Payout duration: 30 days
How to apply: Go to the Namecheap affiliate page for more details.
19. Bluehost
Bluehost is a well-known web hosting company in the digital marketing and tech space. A lot of online businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, and bloggers prefer Bluehost to quickly set up their websites. Bluehost provides all web hosting solutions starting from shared plans to dedicated servers. The prices vary from product to product. They also have a lucrative affiliate program that attracts bloggers and affiliate marketers.
Affiliate commission: 70% commission
Payout methods: Direct deposit and PayPal
Payout duration: 30 days
How to apply: Go to the Bluehost affiliate page for details.
20. Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is one of the most popular affiliate programs in the world. YouTubers, Bloggers, and influencers prefer Amazon Associates over joining several third-party affiliate programs. Affiliates can promote products across multiple categories. The commission rates vary from category to category.
Affiliate commission: 1% to 20% commission rates
Payout methods: Direct deposit and Check
Payout duration: 60 to 90 days
How to apply: Visit the Amazon Associates page to apply for the program.
So, these are some of the best-paying affiliate marketing programs that you can check out.
Dos and don’ts of working with an affiliate partner
Before you hop on an affiliate program, make sure you understand how this affiliate marketing thing works. Above all, be open to exploring new ways, learning from experts, and experimenting as much as you can. Here are some of the dos and donts of working with an affiliate partner:
Understand the niche inside-out
Without a deep understanding of your niche or industry, you’ll be shooting an arrow into the air. The best-paying affiliate programs don’t guarantee that you’ll make loads of money with affiliate marketing – understanding your niche and implementing the right strategies will.
Take a look at this example:
Yasmine Khosrowshahi is a social media influencer and Instagram expert. She talks about Instagram’s growth with proof.
So, don’t rush when picking a niche for affiliate marketing, whether you’re starting a YouTube channel or building a blog around a specific topic. Don’t sleep on learning new things in the niche.
Promote products you have used or tested in the past
It’s always best to promote products that you have used in the past or currently using. The audience finds it convenient when an expert is speaking from experience. The readers are more likely to trust you if your previous recommendations have helped them in the past.
Here’s an example:
Probloggers only promote products or tools that they have tested or currently using. It helps them review the product and voice their opinion with confidence.
Sticking to the niche, opting for the products you know inside-out, and being honest with the audience are perfect ways to set out on this adventurous journey.
Read Up: How to Pitch Your Boss on an Influencer Marketing Platform?
Check the cookie’s length and payout methods
Cookie length means how long the affiliate clicks are valid, and sales from these clicks would generate commissions for you. The cookie duration can be as short as 24 hours and can go up to 180 days – depending on the merchant (the advertiser who is running the affiliate campaign).
Check out this example:
Grammarly has a 90-day cookie length, which makes it convenient for affiliate marketers to convert leads into sales.
Similarly, don’t sign up for an affiliate program without checking out the payout methods. If the required payout methods are not available in your country, you might as well find alternative affiliate programs.
Build connections with affiliate managers
One of the simplest yet effective affiliate marketing tips is to establish connections with affiliate managers. It can all begin with sending over a simple email inquiry asking a few questions about the affiliate program.
Most affiliate managers affiliates go back and forth when trying to figure out the terms and conditions before joining the affiliate program. It also comes down to your communication skills and engagement tactics and how you impress the manager.
Take a look at this example:
Wondershare has clearly mentioned their affiliate manager’s email address in the ShareASale profile, making it easier for affiliates to reach out to them.
No need to choose irrelevant affiliate products
One of the mistakes beginner affiliate marketers make is that they rush to join every affiliate program they can get their hands on. Don’t blindly sign up for every affiliate marketing you come across. You have to choose only relevant products that perfectly sync with your content.
The easiest way to pull this off is to recommend the products you’re using or create content around the products that you’re promoting. Showcase your personal experience with the relevant products, as it adds authenticity and trust to your voice.
The majority of bloggers learn this lesson the hard way, but eventually, they do learn it. Here’s the proof:
Don’t promote dozens of products at once
It’s easy to get carried away when choosing the affiliate products. Critically analyze the products or services you’re choosing to promote to your audience. One must choose the product or service that they believe in or have had a great experience using in the past.
Also Read: How Competitive Intelligence Can Benefit Your Business?
Plus, promoting dozens of similar products often confuses the audience – be crystal clear with your offering, and you won’t regret it.
This article on Payoneer’s blog might change your mind:
Avoid being salesy to earn commissions
You should promote your affiliate products through your content, such as articles, videos, and podcasts, but don’t push the affiliate products too much. It quickly starts to look shady and salesy, which is a huge red flag in affiliate marketing.
Also Read: How to Leverage Social Media Influencers to Discover New Audiences
The audience must see that you genuinely believe in the product and use it yourself. More importantly, this product is making your life easier than ever.
A ConverKit article validates this very point:
Voila! Once you apply these techniques, you won’t have to worry about the passive income from affiliate marketing.
What’s our favorite affiliate program?
We might be a little biased about this, but ContentStudio has a fantastic affiliate program. Not only does it give a whopping 30% commission, but it also offers recurring commissions.
One of the reasons why it’s a good affiliate program is that the product isn’t very cheap, which makes the commissions quite good.
Moreover, the product is quite impressive as compared to the social media scheduling tools available on the market. Additionally, ContentStudio offers several tools, such as blog publishing, social analytics, workflow approval, team members, influencer discovery, and more.
We highly recommend checking out their affiliate program if you’re a blogger, social media influencer, or affiliate marketer.
FAQs
Let us answer some of the burning questions regarding affiliate programs:
Can you make $10,000 a month with affiliate marketing?
Yes, you can. A lot of affiliate marketers make more than that. However, keep in mind that affiliate marketers join several affiliate programs to make hefty commissions.
What is the easiest affiliate program to make money?
Amazon Associates is one of the easiest affiliate programs to make money. However, they have pretty strict terms and conditions to follow. The violation of their terms and conditions results in the account termination.
Can affiliate marketing make you a millionaire?
Many bloggers and niche website builders make a lot of money from affiliate marketing. There is no doubt affiliate marketing can make someone a millionaire.
How much does Amazon affiliate pay?
Amazon Associates program pays somewhere between 1% to 20% depending on the product categories. However, most of the categories fall in the 2% to 4% bracket.
What is the highest-paying affiliate niche?
Mortgage, finance, insurance, car, crypto, and SAAS are a few of the highest-paying affiliate marketing niches. However, there might be many more niches out there that pay well.
Hassaan Khan
Hassaan Khan is a freelance writer for SAAS companies, e-commerce stores, and niche websites. He has contributed to SEMrush, ThriveGlobal, BloggingCage, AllBloggingTips, and several other publications. He builds niche websites, publishes e-books, and helps website investors with his done-for-you niche site-building service.
