Top 5 Affiliate Marketing Websites & Programs in2020

Top 5 Affiliate Marketing Websites & Programs In 2020

It’d be nice to make more money off of your blog, right?

After all the effort it takes to make a blog successful. And the continued effort that content requires every single week, without fail, for your blog to continue being successful… You need to start making some kind of revenue from it.

But the question most bloggers struggle with crops up: “Where do I begin?”

That’s a pretty difficult question to answer. There’s a lot of right and wrong answers to it, too. Depending on your blog niche, traffic, etc. However, for this post – the answer is simple. It’s “affiliate programs.” More specifically, the best affiliate website for you, as any kind of blogger.

Let’s get into the top 5 affiliate websites any level of blogger can benefit from.

1. ShareASale Affiliates

ShareASale has been in business 17 years now, and they’ve definitely kept up with the times. Featuring a plentiful marketplace full of merchants catering to almost everything you can think of, there’s always going to be relevant products for you to promote.

Pros

• Flexible payout options. Digital and standard payout options are available. With digital payment options being so rare among the popular affiliate websites, this earns major points for them!
• Wide product selection. As you’re picking and choosing which merchants to work with, you get a huge library of products to choose from to promote.

Cons

• Not as straightforward as some of its competitors, meaning it’ll take more time to set up comparatively. Not a major issue, but does require a little technical know-how.

2. Amazon Associates

Everyone knows Amazon. The online marketplace that can deliver anything from candy to a fully-functional drone to your door in a day. Every niche has its space on Amazon, which is why it’s such a great starting point for an Affiliate Marketing venture.

Pros

• Up to 10% on any qualifying product sale that comes from your link.
• All purchases the referred traffic make on Amazon, even if it’s not the product you linked to, count towards your affiliate revenue.
• Massively diverse selection of products. A one-stop shop for many people, causing orders to be far larger than the one product link they click on.

Cons

• The affiliate cookie only lasts 24 hours. If they come back and purchase after 24 hours, no revenue for you sadly!
• Lack of payout options. You can only get paid by cheque, bank transfer or Amazon gift card. Hopefully, they branch into digital payment methods soon.

3. eBay Partners

Even the user-based colossal marketplace that is eBay wants you to help advertise and sell the items on their platform. All you need to do is find listings you want to help promote, promote them using Ebay’s Partner Network tools, and you get paid!

Pros

• There is no marketplace more diverse than eBay. It’s user-based. Someone, somewhere, is selling any legal product you can think of. Nothing can rival that diversity.
• The most straightforward affiliate sales methods. No complex rules to follow, simply share your share-link for the listing and you earn if someone buys off it.
• Double Commission for the first 3 months. Extra revenue is always nice.

Cons

• If an auction takes over 10 days to end, you earn nothing – even if you’re the one that sent the winning bidder there. The downside of the auction side of things.

Neutral

• You earn a percentage of what eBay would earn off the sale. Instead of affiliate and you, there’s affiliate, eBay and you – meaning you’re splitting the sale 3-ways. You get a large portion of what eBay would earn, but it’s worth being aware of how that works.

4. Shopify Affiliate Program

Shopify is one of the leading eCommerce software used by bloggers and online retailers. As a blogger yourself, you’re likely familiar with it. So, for those of you in niches where your audience will also be trying to sell online, Shopify is a great affiliate partnership for you to point them to.

Pros

• You earn a lot per referral. You earn the first two months of your referral’s subscription fee (200% bounty), up to $598 on standard plans. 100% bounty on the enterprise plan which pays $2,000.
• It’s a platform worth referring people to. Shopify is the leading contender in its space. Very few other eCommerce platforms come close.

Cons

• It’s pretty niche. While the payout is great, your audience needs to be selling things online for Shopify to ever be relevant to them.

5. Clickbank

Clickbank is much like ShareASale. A diverse marketplace filled with merchants that you pick-and-choose to promote, based on what your audience would be interested in.

Pros

• You will find something to promote. Their product database is one of the easiest to navigate out of any on this list. It makes finding something to promote really easy!

Cons

• No digital payment methods yet. Sadly they only offer: Check, Direct Deposit, Wire Transfers or Payoneer as their payment options. They need more digital options.
• Maximum of $150 earned per referral sale, regardless of product. That feels pretty limiting. It’d be nice to see a higher limit, or to simply allow for unlimited scaling.