What to look for in an awesome affiliate program [affiliate marketing for beginners]

If you’re new to affiliate marketing, I want you to read this post first, and check out this affiliate marketing school for all the information you need. Affiliate marketing is fantastic and can be a very profitable income stream if you have a blog (read the Ultimate Guide To Blogging for more blog tips and income streams for content creators!), but also when you don’t have a blog, as it works perfectly on social media and Pinterest.  But it’s best if you follow certain rules to play the affiliate marketing game, one of them is, pick your programs wisely. And here are a few tips on picking your affiliate marketing programs.

When you’re looking for new programs to promote, make sure they have the following three things in check:

You love the product

It’s easy to fall into the ‘promote as much as possible to earn more’ kinda-vibe, but that’s not smart. In fact, it’s very confusing for your readers and followers and you will end up earning less. Find your focus, and focus on just a couple of great affiliate programs to join so you promote products you use on a daily basis. You can explain the benefits best if you use the product yourself, so don’t get into the trap of promoting products you don’t use. I personally love Planoly to schedule my Instagram, Tailwind to schedule my Pinterest and to join tribes and Convertkit to send out emails and automate my PR strategy. Now, these are all tools I use on a daily basis. I can’t live without them! And I’m happy to promote them without getting paid for it, that’s how it should be!

Will you receive long-term recurring commissions?

There are affiliate programs that only send you a fixed amount per sale, but some… pay you monthly as long as your lead is a customer. How awesome?! This is what you should look for in a great affiliate program, because you will earn more and more each month, instead of hustling each month to getting ‘x’ amount of sales just to get by. I see so many bloggers hustle to get a decent amount of income from being a Bluehost affiliate, but that’s very hard because there’s a lot of competition and they don’t pay recurring commission. I receive a monthly commission for everybody that signed-up via my Clickfunnel link after I signed-up using a fellow blogger’s affiliate link too and I’m happy to do so. It’s a beautiful chain of people supporting each other while using awesome products to grow their marketing strategies and blogs. Here is a list of my favorite recurring paying affiliate programs.

Cookie tracking time

Some affiliate programs only pay you when your lead signs up within 14 or 30 days. This is fairly short when it comes to a bigger purchase like monthly memberships or expensive products/tools. People need some time to think about a big purchase, and it would be a shame if the cookie gets removed before they buy right? Now there are two ways to approach affiliate marketing. As a creator that’s selling something or as ‘the blogger’ that’s promoting someone else’s product. 

Want to learn more practices to rock your blog and go pro by building a profitable blog within 30 days or less? Check out my free video training here. 

• 3 New ideas to make money online in under 30 minutes a day for bloggers and influencers
• Affiliate marketing for beginners (+25 new tips to go PRO with your affiliate marketing strategy!)
• Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
• Recurring income affiliate programs and the highest paying affiliate programs
• 7 Smart strategies you don’t know yet that will prepare you for bad financial times as a blogger and small business owner