What is Affiliate Marketing and How it Works?
There are a number of ways to make money online by using your laptop with internet connectivity. One of them is affiliate marketing which is known as the oldest technique and way to make money online by selling products and services.
You can earn a healthy amount of money by doing this job. You just need to promote the products and when someone purchases these products through your reference link, the product merchant/company will give you a fixed amount of commission as a reward.
In affiliate marketing, you are an independent promoter and not officially hired by the merchant. It means you are not eligible to get any incentives, bonuses, or other benefits from the company except a fixed commission.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is a performance-based rewarding system in which a company or merchant pays a fixed amount of commission to their product promoters(in other words affiliates) when someone purchases products through affiliates’ specific referral links.
How Does It Work?
It’s very simple to understand how does affiliate marketing works? You just need to promote and sell products by different means such as; on your website, social media network, or through emails.
For example, you placed a banner of HostGator with your specific affiliate link provided by the company on your website. Now If someone clicks on that banner and purchases a webhosting package or other services offered by the company then Hostgator will pay you a fixed amount of commission.
Usually, HG pays $100 per successful purchase of web hosting packages and other services. So, Isn’t it easy to understand the way affiliate marketing works?
Before starting, you need to Sign up for the Affiliate Program in which you want to do work. Now a day’s almost all full-time bloggers enjoy massive income through affiliate marketing programs.
If you want to make some extra money then the following are the best affiliate marketing programs available;
1. Commission Junction (CJ)
CJ stands for commission junction is an online advertisement company and marketplace for publishers and also for advertisers. It is founded in 1998, known as the world’s best affiliate marketing program.
Commission Junction merchants pay a good commission to their promoters. It is like ClickBank but it’s a non-digital product marketing store.
2. Rakuten LinkShare
Rakuten LinkShare Corporation founded in 1996 offers e-commerce and online services such as affiliate marketing, new signup, registration, free trial, paid search, etc.
LinkShare is also an affiliate marketplace. Recently Linkshare was selected as the number # 1 affiliate network by Mthink. The support of LinkShare for users is awesome and can’t ignore.
3. Amazon Associates
Amazon is an electronic commerce company, located in America and founded in 1994. It is the world’s largest online retail store.
Amazon Associates have separate sites for the USA, Canada, Italy, Spain, Brazil, China, India, and more. Amazon pays little commission but due to the great and trusted online reputation, it’s a great program for earning good revenue.
4. ShareASale
Share-a-sale is another affiliate marketing network, founded in 2000. Affiliates can choose different types of products according to their site niche and then promote these products on their website, blog, PPC campaigns, Email, and in other sources.
If someone makes a successful purchase from your affiliate link, he/she will get a cut of 4% to 40% commission on the total amount of the purchase. In Share-a-sale commission depends on the merchant ToS.
5. ClickBank
ClickBank is a marketplace for digital information products and was selected top market affiliate program of 2011 in the USA. ClickBank offers services in upto 200 countries. They offer upto 75% commission on each sale.
ClickBank is one oldest marketplace for publishers to earn some passive income.
6. BlueHost
Yet another awesome affiliate program, founded in 1996 and also one of the 20 largest web hosting and domain name registrar companies around the globe.
Bluehost pays a $65 commission per referral to their product promoters.
You can make a good income by Bluehost. It is an economical shared web hosting and domain registrar recommended by the WordPress team and many pro-bloggers.
7. HostGator
HostGator was founded in 2002 and is known as a great affiliate program for publishers to make some extra buck online. They provide cheap but quality cPanel hosting backed by Linux servers at affordable rates.
Their product line includes shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud servers, managed WordPress, website builder, and domain registration services. Hostgator offers incredible commission plans to their product promoters.
They offer a $100 commission for every sale of web hosting plans. If you send 1~5 referrals per month to Hostgator then you will get 5x$100=$500 and if you refer more customers, they also offer custom commissions.
I hope this article will help you to choose the best affiliate marketing programs for making money online. These companies really pay a healthy amount of commission to product promoters.
Do let me know which affiliate marketing programs are your best and how many programs you are using right now?
