Best Affiliate Programs For Beginners (2024 Update): Which One Is Right For You?

In this Affiliate Marketing Programs review, we’ll dive into the pros and cons of the industry.

But before that, let’s ask ourselves: Is affiliate marketing even a worthwhile business model?

On the one hand, the idea of Affiliate Marketing sounds like a business owner's dream come true.

You don’t have to worry about...

• Creating products
• Fulfilling product orders
• Stressing over customer service
• Getting bad reviews

Your only job is to get the right customers in front of the right offer, and get a commission when they buy.

And – theoretically – you can do it all in an hour a day in between walks on the beach.

But...

Well, not really.

Driving traffic (that’s internet speak for getting customers) is single-handedly the hardest part of the entire marketing process.

Later in this review, we’ll talk about all the different skills you need to drive traffic successfully.

For now, let’s just say the promise doesn’t really match up with reality. 

At best, affiliate marketing is a job. You’re working for someone else, selling their products, and at any time, they can change your commission structure or block you from selling their stuff entirely.

In this business, you don’t really own or control anything. Since – for the most part – you’re driving traffic (again, the hardest job of all) and sending it to someone else, you don’t even get to keep the customers, who are the most valuable piece of the puzzle.

At worst, affiliate marketing is a pyramid scheme. There are certain – ahem – programs that charge you a monthly “membership fee”, under the guise that you will learn how to be a “wealthy affiliate marketer”.

Once you join, however, you find out the only way to really make money is by being an affiliate for that program.

That’s pretty much the textbook definition of a pyramid scheme.

Now, let’s say you really want that hour-a-day-work-from-the-beach lifestyle.

What if there was a way you could build a passive income stream that’s actually passive?

An income stream that doesn’t require:

• Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours before seeing your first dollar
• Doing all the hard work of driving traffic to only get a tiny commission
• Running your business on someone else’s terms

An income stream that brings in consistent revenues every single month (from a couple thousand dollars to well over $10,000)?

An income stream you could actually build in your spare time, and grow as large or as small as you want to, without having to spend hours a day testing, tweaking, and risking your money in the hope you can finally start making sales?

If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out Digital Leasing. 

This is like taking all the good parts from affiliate marketing (however few there are), and putting aside all the bad.

However, if you’d still like to know more about different Affiliate Programs, keep reading.

What Is An Affiliate Program?

An Affiliate program (A.K.A. affiliate marketing program) is fairly simple. This affiliate network provides a third-party platform that allows merchants and affiliates to find and work with each other. Merchants sign-up in an affiliate program to, with the help of dedicated affiliate managers, find Affiliates they can work with.

In other words, it is an arrangement in which one company pays another company or an influencer a certain commission for referring the affiliate link to visitors or by making sales to them.

You can accomplish this by using site content, social media, or product integration.

What Are Affiliate Marketers?

As we mentioned, Affiliate marketing is when you join up with a company or an affiliate network to sell their goods or services.

As an Affiliate Marketer, you would normally get a commission if someone purchases anything or performs a desired activity.

The affiliate income is often included in the company’s or affiliate program’s online marketing budget and is a smart way to earn online money.

Before you get carried away with picking the ideal affiliate model, it’s crucial to know exactly what topic you want to focus on

Knowing what you want to specialize in will help you chart a route for selecting the program that will provide you with the highest return on investment (R.O.I.), depending on your business objectives.

Most affiliate marketers are bloggers or content creators who have discovered affiliate programs in the same field.

Successful affiliate marketers know the approach to affiliate marketing with a value-based mindset.

You can save their affiliate partner offers in a spreadsheet to utilize later when you begin rating your site in the affiliate marketing network.

It isn’t only a great way to make money, but it is also flexible to your schedule.

Now let me introduce some of the best affiliate marketers!

Affiliate Marketers And How Much They Can Earn

Some Of The Most Popular Affiliate Marketers Are:

• Pat Flynn
• Finch Sells
• Missy Ward
• Shawn Collins
• Zac Johnson
• Ian Fernando
• John Chow
• Kirsty McCubbin
• Robby Blanchard

Affiliate marketers can earn about $65,800, ranging between $42,000 at the lowest end and $83,000 at the highest end.

ZipRecruiter is one of the highest-paying affiliate programs, as you can make upwards of $154,700 a year.

But as a business owner, you might be asking:

Why Should I Get Into Affiliate Networks?

According to Statistica, Affiliate marketing expenditure in the United States can reach up to $8.2 billion by [year].

So, it’s normal to ask why businesses spend so much money on affiliate marketing programs?

Here Are Some Reasons Why Affiliate Marketing Is An Advantage In Your Business:

• Low start-up costs: An affiliate program does not need graphic ads or an ad space of your own.Instead, you’ll rely on your affiliates to provide marketing material for your material for you.
• Low used of expenses: Your affiliates will also carry a portion of the expense.And, since it’s a commission-based scheme, you’ll only pay affiliates based on their sales.Affiliate marketing guarantees that you only part with your money when sales are made.
• Low dangerLow financial risk: You’ll only pay when there's a contract agreement, so there is minimal chance of loss, and it's ideal for enterprises on a limited budget.
• Targeted Internet Traffic: You can assure that the people who will find your site are the ones who see your product or service as valuable.
• Flexibility: Your affiliate program can be scaled up or down at little to no expense, as it provides you the opportunity to expand your company without breaking the bank.
• High Return on Investment: Having the keys to product innovation and good management abilities isn’t enough for you to have a high R.O.I.; you’ll also need to nail your marketing. Affiliate marketing has been shown to have a substantially greater R.O.I. than the bulk of marketing tactics.

What Are The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs?

As the affiliate network business model becomes more popular in the industry, it tends to be harder to know the oldest and best affiliate programs for beginners.

So we've created a list to see if we can find the best affiliate program for your business!

Amazon Associates

The Amazon Affiliate Program A.K.A. the Amazon Associates Program is one of the oldest and best affiliate marketing programs available.

As it is extensive, they can cover almost everything online. So, if you can locate anything on Amazon, you can sell it and earn from it.

And it covers anything from novels to bullhorns and everything in between — there’s something for everyone.

CJ Affiliate Network

Founded in 1998, C.J. Affiliate, originally known as Commission Junction, is one of the oldest affiliate networks and a favorite among the top affiliate marketers.

Shareasale

ShareASale is most likely one of the most underutilized affiliate networks out there.

Part of this is because the U.I. still looks like it’s from 2002 — it hasn’t changed since I initially signed up for my account many moons ago.

ClickBank

ClickBank is another affiliate network in the “grandparent” category, having been online since 1998.

While every other affiliate network was attempting to find out how to distribute items while still making a profit, the founders at ClickBank flipped that concept by concentrating on selling digital products instead.

Rakuten Marketing

Rakuten may be unfamiliar to you, but they are a wholly Japanese affiliate marketing service provider.

When they purchased LinkShare in 2005, they got their foot in the door of the affiliate marketing landscape.

Since then, they’ve moved the Rakuten Linkshare platform from having a market presence to winning honors consistently.

Impact

Despite its claims, Impact is just another large affiliate marketing network. However, It's not as old as ClickBank and ShareASale.

But, age is only a number, so Impact’s relative youth should not deter you from joining up. Commission Junction was founded by its creators, so they certainly know what they’re doing!

Like the other big-name networks, Impact has a slew of renowned brands, such as Adidas, Airbnb, and HSBC.

Awin

While it’s difficult to measure, Awin can no doubt claim to be the biggest affiliate network, with over 16,500 advertisers and 225,000 affiliates.

The platform achieved an amazing $4.5 Billion in sales in 2021 alone, and its affiliates earned $1 billion in commission, so it’s a fairly significant thing.

Not only that, it's also one of the oldest networks and best affiliate programs. Although Awin has only been in operation since 2017, its origins align with Zanox and Affiliate Window networks founded in 2000.

Etsy Affiliate Program

The Etsy program is a mix of affiliate marketing and selling on Etsy.

Items offered on the site are manufactured by individual crafters, antique dealers, and artists. However, there has been some “creep” with offshore manufacturers attempting to make a claim here.

EBay Affiliate Network

What began as a method for people to clean out their garages and earn a little cash has evolved into a worldwide marketing platform for individuals and large corporations.

Unlike some of the other affiliate marketing programs in this list, as an eBay affiliate, you’ll be working directly with eBay and their product

The Fiverr Affiliate Program

Speak to several other affiliate marketers, and I’m sure they’ll tell you that selling services is often far simpler than selling physical items.

Provide a list of service providers to an audience, and they will take care of the rest.

Fiverr took that fundamental notion and expanded with it, monetizing the gig industry for services such as graphic design, marketing, writing, video and animation, music, programming, business, lifestyle, and initiatives.

Although you can join up for their program on CJ.com, we’ll concentrate on their in-house affiliate network instead for simplicity.

Unlike some other affiliate programs, Fiverr allows you to make affiliate money in a variety of ways, including via their ‘Learn from Fiverr’ courses, where you may earn a 30% commission on sales, and because of this, you can consider it as one of the best affiliate programs

Refersion Market

Refersion affiliate market connects your ecommerce business and helps you you manage your program.

It also gives you insight that aims to improve your increase revenue and scale.

PepperJam

PepperJam may not be a name that comes to mind right away.

But they’ve been a part of the affiliate marketing business for a long time, creating enough of an impression to be purchased by eBay in 2009.

FlexOffers

FlexOffers is a reputable partner network that offers complete services to both publishers and advertisers. The network has built relationships with over 10,000 affiliate programs and provides cutting-edge payment methods.

Their affiliate partners will have access to a variety of tiers of digital performance-based marketing solutions thanks to FlexOffers' distinctive framework.

They offer an affiliate marketing platform for company such as Macy’s, Walgreens, Hulu, Kohl’s, McAfee, and AT&T, among others.

Avangate

Avangate was formed in 2006 and, like ClickBank, solely promoted digital items.

In addition, Avangate has two companies – Checkout is their affiliate software platform, and Avangate is their parent company.

Checkout has 22,000 software marketers onboard and a handful of online courses, such as SuperReading.

The software includes Hide My Ass, Bit Defender, Malware Bytes, SEO PowerSuite, Filmora, and FTP software.

FanFuel

Wolfson Brands’ affiliate arm, FanFuel, focuses on items for the health and fitness sector.

Their goods are utilized and supported by professional athletes and health and fitness-focused social influencers, which sets them apart from their competition.

However, they also sell nootropics, hair loss remedies, and cosmeceuticals to improve human performance.

Affiliate Program For Market Health

Market Health employs a hybrid affiliate marketing approach in which they are both an affiliate network and manufacture and sell their line of healthcare and cosmetic goods.

DreamHost

DreamHost is well-known for its dependable and secure hosting solutions, as well as its great customer service.

It's a popular hosting service, hosting approximately 1.5 million websites on its server.

A2 Web Hosting

A2 Hosting is one of the most cost-effective and high-quality hosting services. It is slowly but surely gaining traction as a popular hosting option for novice bloggers.

Affiliate program for A2hosting:

They offer an affiliate program in which you may earn a very good commission, as seen below:

• 1-10 sales: $85 per sale
• 11–20 sales: $100 per sale
• 21–30 sales: $120 per sale
• 31 or more sales: $140/sale
• As a result, the larger the commission, the higher the sales.

A2 Hosting provides its affiliates with a cookie life of 90 days. That is, if your referral purchases any A2 Hosting hosting plans within 90 days after the initial visit, you will get a commission.

It's one of the most effective web hosting affiliate programs.

Bluehost

Bluehost is a well-known hosting service company. WordPress even recommends it. All hosting plans are reasonably priced, and it offers a 60-day money-back guarantee on its plans.

It's also the hosting service for over 2 million websites worldwide.

Bluehost’s affiliate program allows you to earn $65 per transaction.

They provide affiliates with a 90-day cookie life.

Cloudways

Cloudways operates as a platform provider. Therefore they assist you in managing applications hosted on cloud servers.

Cloudways’ hosting solution is ideal for developers who wish to swiftly deploy sites to cloud servers such as Digital Ocean, AWS, and others.

As indicated below, the slab commission structure contains four performance-based slabs and related commissions:

• 1 – 5 monthly referrals – $50 per sale
• 6 – 20 monthly referrals – $75 per sale
• 21-45 referrals per month at the cost of $100 per sale
• 46-80 referrals per month at the cost of $125 per sale

The Hybrid model has a recurring compensation structure with a $30 upfront incentive and a 7% lifetime commission.

Pixelied

Pixelied is a popular graphic design tool that enables you to create amazing professional-looking graphics for your social networking sites, blog posts, YouTube channel (thumbnails), and more.

Even if you have no design background, you can use hundreds of pre-made templates and alter them to create your own unique look.

Pixelied also provides 4+ million royalty-free stock pictures, thousands of icons, a backdrop remover, a 700+ library of hand-drawn drawings, and more to make your design more appealing and professional.

Canva

Canva is a free graphic design program that makes it simple to create and share professional images. It comes with over one million stock pictures, free fonts, drag-and-drop capabilities, and the ability to build bespoke designs.

Canva has made design accessible to everybody, regardless of background or degree of ability. Canva can help you build anything, whether you’re creating for business, school, or enjoyment!

Canva allows you to create visual design elements such as blog banners, YouTube thumbnails, infographics, eBooks, eBook covers, presentations, and more.

Stencil

Another popular graphic design tool is Stencil, which enables users to make social media images, intriguing advertising, amazing blog headers, and more.

It has 1350+ ready-made templates, 5 million+ stock pictures, 4750+ Google Fonts, 3 million+ icons & graphics, and more.

Other significant features include quick resizing, social network sharing (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and more), interaction with Buffer for picture schedules, and simple browser extensions.

The stencil affiliate program gives a 30% recurring reward for each successful Referral as long as the referrer stays a paid Stencil member.

Stencil makes all payments using PayPal. The Stencil Dashboard allows you to monitor all clicks, traffic, leads, and conversions.

So Is Affiliate Marketing A Scam?

So, is Affiliate Marketing a scam? Not technically. You can make money with this program, but making money with affiliate marketing definitely isn’t as easy as the company makes it sound.

Driving traffic is extremely difficult. In order to do it successfully, you need to at least understand all these things, if not be a ninja at them:

• Copywriting
• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Content Writing
• Website Building
• Conversion Optimization
• Automation
• Email Marketing
• Click Tracking
• Retargeting/Remarketing
• SEO
• Backlinking

And a lot more.

There’s a ton of work to be done upfront, no real guarantee of success, and - most importantly - the actual commissions are pretty small.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with front-loading the work and making the money later.

But if you’re grinding it out for 3 months and then your reward is a $50 commission, it’s not really worth it.

What if, instead, you could do that same 3 months of work (in your spare time), and your reward was a $500 to $2,000 payment that came in every single month?

And what if you only needed 1 or 2 of the above skills to get started, instead of mastering all 12 before seeing your first dollar?

And what if you actually didn’t need to wait 3 months? What if you could get started today and have your first payment in a week?

And what if you could double it next week?

Well, that’s the power of Digital Leasing. 

Your laptop and an internet connection is all you need.

Some of the most successful students in this program run their entire 6-figure businesses from:

• A camper in the middle of the woods
• A beach chair on the water in Mexico
• A small villa in Greece

They’re able to travel around, living their lives first, and focusing on their income second.

Because even if they stop working for an extended period of time, the money keeps coming in.

So adventure, memories, and experience are the top priority.

And they never have to worry about how to pay for the next trip, or consider asking for time off.

If this sounds more like the type of life you want to lead, just click here to find out more about Digital Leasing.

Are There Alternatives To Affiliate Programs?

Yes, there are plenty of Affiliate Marketing programs and resources to choose from if you want to pursue this business model.  Here are just a few:

• Affiliate Marketing Mastery
• Amazon Affiliate Marketing
• Commission Junction
• Wealthy Affiliate
• Clickbank

My Number #1 Recommendation For Making Money Online In 2024

Our review team has spent months researching, reviewing, and vetting dozens of business models and thousands of programs.

While there may be no “perfect business”, the research IS conclusive:

Digital Leasing is the #1 online business model for those just starting out.

Whether you’ve never made a dollar online, or you’ve been in this space for a while but never really “made it,” Digital Leasing is for you.

Why?

1) It’s Flexible: got an hour a day? You can do this. Ready to drop everything else and dive in full time? You can do this. Yes, the more time you put in, the faster you see results. But even with a little time each day, you can move the needle in a Digital Leasing business.

And because this system is so flexible, you don’t have to constantly be working to make more money. It’s called PASSIVE INCOME because if you stop working, the money doesn’t.

Imagine taking 3 months off to just tour around Europe, rent a cabin in the woods to write a book, hike the Appalachian Trail, or live on the beach and surf all day.

This is only possible if you have an income stream that’s not tied to your time.

2) You Own & Control EVERYTHING: With Affiliate Marketing, you don’t really own anything. You have no control over the quality of products. You don’t even own customers.

Look at the fine print for most affiliate agreements. At any point, the company can change your commission structure, reduce your profit margins, or kick you out entirely.

With Digital Leasing, you own the assets, which means you have all the power and all the control.

3) Little To No Startup Costs: It’s possible to get into Digital Leasing with zero dollars upfront. Because, using the strategies outlined in this program, you can get a client to pay you BEFORE spending a penny out of your own pocket...even before you do any work.

Even without getting paid in advance, you can have your first Digital Rental Property up, running, and generating profits for less than $100.

4) Easy To Duplicate: Ok, here’s the best part: once you have your first Digital Rental Property up and running, you can literally DOUBLE your income with a few clicks, a couple keystrokes, and a single phone call (and you don’t actually need the phone call).

Remember: each Digital Rental Property is worth $500 to $2,000 a month in semi-passive income (over 95% profit). Every time you decide to create another one and increase your income, it gets easier.

Because you have more knowledge, more experience, more results, and more momentum.

If you wanted to double your income with affiliate marketing, you’d have to double your traffic, double the average order size of each customer, OR double your commission rate. And, guaranteed that’s a lot harder than a few clicks and a few minutes of your life.

5) Make Money Helping Real People: This part is what makes it all worth it. With affiliate marketing, you’re selling the product with the best commission rate, NOT the one that’s going to improve the most people’s lives.

And that makes it pretty hard to sleep at night.

But with Digital Leasing, you’re actually helping people by solving your clients’ biggest problem:

Small, local businesses need more customers, and with Digital Leasing, you are unleashing a flood of happy, paying customers for these businesses.

You make money by helping them make money.

Not a big, faceless corporation either...a small business owner who’s using that money to put food on the table for their family, start a college fund for their kids, or take care of a sick parent.

Once you see how Digital Leasing makes a real impact in the lives of real people, you’ll sleep like a baby with a big smile on your face.

Now, the choice is yours. You could continue browsing, looking at opportunities like Affiliate Marketing Programs which could one day make you money.

You could continue researching, never making a decision.

OR, you could take a look inside, consider what you really want, and join a program that makes your dreams a reality. At the same time, joining a community of over 2,000 successful students that are living life on their own terms thanks to Digital Leasing.

A consistent, reliable, semi-passive stream of income that doesn’t depend on you or your time to keep producing profits.

All while genuinely helping real people who are grateful and happy to pay for it.

If this sounds more like what you want out of life (or if you just want some nice side income), click here to learn more about Digital Leasing.