Let’s talk about the best high-paying affiliate programs for bloggers.
But first…
What the heck is affiliate marketing and how can you make money from it?
Well, my friend…I’m glad you asked!
This article is going to dig into the definition of affiliate marketing and the best affiliate programs for bloggers.
So, let’s get to it!
{{ Our articles contain affiliate links. Full disclosure here. }}
WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Affiliate marketing is a digital system that allows a business to pay commissions to anyone that promotes their stuff. The person promoting that stuff is YOU babe.
Seriously. That’s it.
You’ll find and join an affiliate program of your choosing. Then you’ll receive a special trackable link that you can share with your audience…and when someone buys that product or service through your link, you get a commission.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
HOW TO BECOME AN AFFILIATE
There are two ways to make money with affiliate marketing.
You can join an individual affiliate program through an individual company, or you can join an affiliate network and connect with several companies on that network’s platform.
Joining an individual affiliate program:
This is a program that a company creates and runs on their own. Also known as an in-house affiliate program.
They work directly with their affiliate marketers (that’s you). They create their own terms and contracts, and they pay you directly.
Note: Most companies have an affiliate program, or they can easily create one! You might just have to ask!
If you want to find out if a company you love has an affiliate program you can join, simply search Google for the company name, and add ‘affiliate program’ to the end of it.
Example: ‘Amazon affiliate program’ or ‘Cricut affiliate program’…
Joining an affiliate network:
An affiliate network is a little bit different. The network is like the bridge that connects YOU (the affiliate) and the COMPANY that you want to promote.
Networks include several companies and they house their affiliate programs on one platform.
The network acts as the middleman between the company and their affiliates.
When you sign up for an affiliate network, you’re joining a platform that works with many companies doing affiliate marketing. And most of the time, you’ll have to join the network, and also apply to the individual companies that you want to work for within that network.
If you want to take a deep-dive into the process of making money through affiliate marketing, check out this FREE 4-day affiliate marketing challenge!
BEFORE YOU JOIN AN AFFILIATE NETWORK…DO THIS
If you want to jump into affiliate marketing (and you should), give some thought to what kind of products you want to promote.
You should only be promoting products that you truly believe in and think your audience will benefit from.
Once you have an idea of the companies you want to work with and the products you want to promote, you can start signing up for affiliate programs and/or networks.
Remember, individual affiliate programs allow you to work directly with individual companies, and affiliate networks are third-party companies that act as a bridge between YOU and the BUSINESS that you are going to be promoting.
BEST INDIVIDUAL AFFILIATE PROGRAMS FOR BLOGGERS TO JOIN
Let’s talk about some individual affiliate programs for bloggers. These are individual companies that accept affiliates into their flock and pay them directly, without a third-party network.
Remember: you should only join affiliate programs that are a good fit for YOUR readers. So, let’s break these programs up into a few popular blogging categories.
Affiliate programs in the business niche…
These are some of the best affiliate programs in the online business niche!
SITEGROUND
This is a website hosting company that will forever have my blogger heart! They provide all the tools that you need to set up and run your own self-hosted website.
If your audience needs access to high-quality website hosting, check out the Siteground affiliate program. Pay starts at $50 per qualifying sale.
GETRESPONSE
This is a marketing software company that provides all of the tools you need for the marketing side of your business. Their solutions include email marketing tools, automation tools, landing page creation tools, and more.
They have two affiliate payout options: a one-time payment of $100 per referral, or 33% recurring monthly commissions.
BECOMING A BLOGGER
This is my company’s affiliate program. We pay 40% commissions for sales on all of the educational courses found here.
If you have an audience that needs help growing or monetizing their blog, you can join my affiliate program and make a generous 40% commission from every sale that is made through your link. To join, just send me an email via my contact page or comment on this article!
TAILWIND
The Tailwind affiliate program is great for bloggers that want to recommend automation tools to their audience. This is an automation tool for Pinterest and Instagram, and it pays 15% recurring commissions.
PRETTY LINKS
You’ll end up finding some affiliate programs just through coincidence, when you start using and loving new blogging tools, like Pretty Links.
It’s an awesome plugin that cleans up those long, messy strings of numbers and letters in your URLs. It also allows you to create custom links for those long, ugly affiliate links (when the affiliate company TOS allows it)…
Who doesn’t like clean website links, right?
As a product, it’s just a simple WordPress plugin that cleans up the look of your URLs and makes them more memorable for your audience.
As an affiliate, the Level 1 payout is 25% commission and you’ll start receiving payouts after hitting a $50 minimum threshold.
ULTIMATE BUNDLES
This affiliate program rocks, for more reasons than one!
First off, customers get a HUGE discount on the bundles that they purchase (between 90-97% off).
Secondly, affiliates get a hefty 40% commission for each sale, which is absolutely incredible in the affiliate marketing world.
Thirdly, affiliates get an additional discount on all bundles that they purchase for themselves. The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit is one of their most popular products and it’s a perfect recommendation for bloggers in the online business niche!
Affiliate programs in the mom niche…
Here are a few of the best affiliate programs for bloggers in the “mom blog” niche.
AMAZON ASSOCIATES
This is a great affiliate program for most bloggers, but it’s especially valuable for mom bloggers!
Moms are busy and tired. They appreciate the ease of buying from Amazon and having goods delivered to their door (with FREE shipping)!
Amazon is also a trusted brand, and people are much more willing to hand over their credit card to a company they know and trust.
You do have to make three qualifying sales within the first 180 days to remain in the affiliate program, but if you build a loyal following and promote great products, that won’t be a problem.
** Keep in mind, your family and friends are not considered referral customers, according to Amazon’s Terms of Use, and you can only receive a commission if Amazon considers the sale to be a “Qualifying Purchase.”
If you ask your mama to buy something from one of your links, you won’t receive credit for that.
Note: Amazon is one of the lowest paying affiliate programs, but it does have decent conversion rates, so it’s good to weigh your options!
MOM SMART, NOT HARD
This is a company that sells planners and ebooks to help make mom life easier. They pay 50% commissions to their affiliates.
FINN AND EMMA
This is a company that sells organically grown baby clothes, toys, and accessories. They pay 10% commissions to their affiliates.
MIRACLE CORD
Earn $100 per sale promoting a company that helps mamas preserve the umbilical cord blood from baby’s birth. First join Share-a-sale, then apply to the program.
Affiliate programs in the beauty/fashion niche…
Here are a few of the best in-house affiliate programs for beauty and fashion bloggers.
MAKEUP GEEK
Makeup Geek sells … makeup, of course! And they pay 10% commissions to their affiliates. This is a great affiliate program to join if your audience is interested in makeup or cosmetics.
DRESS FOR LESS
This company is a designer label fashion outlet. They provide compensation for leads AND sales, and the payout for affiliates is up to 10% per sale.
These listed above are just a few of the great affiliate programs you can join, but like I said, most companies have an affiliate program or can easily create one.
You just have to start searching for them!
THE BEST AFFILIATE NETWORKS TO JOIN
So, which affiliate networks are ideal for you?
The cool thing about affiliate networks is: they contain a pool of affiliate programs in EVERY blogging niche! So, no matter what you blog about, you can join an affiliate network and find programs that fit with your audience.
Here are some of the most popular affiliate networks for bloggers to join:
SHARE A SALE
Remember, you’ll join the network, search for companies you want to promote within the network, and then apply for access to that program.
This network is great for bloggers in any niche and has over 4,500 affiliate programs you can join. Free to join and use!
AWIN
This is another affiliate network that is great for every blogger. They charge a $5 screening fee for you to join their network, but they refund that charge after you get approved.
They have a plethora of programs within the network that you can join, including the popular Etsy program. Here is their directory if you want to look into the companies you can work with. Hundreds of them!
FLEX OFFERS
Flexoffers is one of the most popular affiliate networks. They have over 12,000 programs to choose from and extensive resources to help you succeed.
Free to join, this affiliate network is one of the best options for bloggers.
PRO TIP: Join a few networks and a few programs to get your feet wet, but don’t overdo it in the beginning.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
As a quick recap, affiliate marketing is just working with brands and businesses to promote their stuff, in exchange for a commission.
You can work with individual affiliate programs or join affiliate programs through a network like Share-a-Sale.
The ultimate goal is to find products that will be valuable to your own audience, and then create content that promotes those products using your affiliate link.
Like anything worthwhile, it takes some time and effort to start seeing the fruits of your labor … but with strategic effort and patience, you can do it!
Here are some other popular affiliate programs for bloggers in any niche:
- 47+ Affiliate Programs for Food Bloggers
- The Best Affiliate Programs for Beauty Bloggers
- 11+ Coffee Affiliate Programs for Bloggers
- The Best Homeschool Affiliate Programs
- 3 High-Paying Affiliate Programs for Crunchy Mom Bloggers
- How to Make Money from a New Blog with Low Traffic
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I have been planning to join a affiliate program. Your post will be really helpful to me. Thanks for sharing
This article will be helpful for me when I decide it for making money… But it’s well described
Thank you for the post. I have been an affiliate with Ultimate Bundle forever but its only recently I decided to do something with it. I will keep your advice in mind.
Cate Rosales, I’ve seen this a few times on your site: “This post probably contains affiliate links. This means I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you purchase through one of these links. Thank you for your support!”
My question is: is it mandatory to
alert your readers about the affiliate links and you being paid for same?
Yes, it is required by the FTC to clearly disclose if there is any sort of monetary compensation that will result from a purchase made through an affiliate link.
Ok. Thank you, Cate
Does the disclaimer need to be at the start of the blog post?
Yes, your disclaimer needs to be displayed before the affiliate links.
What about using an affiliate link with a “swipe up” on instagram stories?
swipe up affiliate links are great!
Thanks so much for sharing! I just recently launched my blog and have been researching affiliate programs. This has been super helpful!
Thank You, Cate. I did use the Amazon affiliate program but soon realised that they were giving way low commissions. So now I use others. Thanks Again
You’re very welcome!
I’m so glad it was helpful!
Hi Cate!
Thank you so much for this.
Btw, which Affiliate program do you recommend for promoting WordPress related products like premium plugins and themes? Or should I join each product’s affiliate program separately?
Thank you!
Perfect timing! Sorting out affiliate marketing is at the top of my ‘DO THIS NOW’ list – thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much for this wonderful information! I’m New to blogging and plan to look into joining affiliate networks soon. Your list has given me a great start off point!
You’re welcome, I’m so glad the post was helpful!
Affiliate marketing is my favorite! Thanks so much for reading!
Most of the time, you’ll join these programs individually 🙂
Great affilate marketing article you have written.I appplied for amazon affilitae a month back but i dint get any response from them yet.
I appreciate you taking the time to create an article on this. Looking forward to putting this into action for my brand.
Thank you for this! With the affiliate programs do I have to attach a blog? Or can it just pop up in any blog i post? Thank you
Yes, you’ll usually need to attach a website to the program in order to get approved. Some might make exceptions, you’ll have to check with the individual program. Hope that helps!
Thanks for reading, I’m glad it was helpful!