This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase.
If you are considering starting a blog to make money, check out the best affiliate programs for bloggers.
It’s one of the best ways to create another source of income through your blog.
In this article, we’re going to discuss what is affiliate marketing and how you can earn through this activity. We will also talk about tips and strategies to employ to become successful.
Lastly, we will provide you with the best affiliate programs for bloggers.
Table of Contents
Here’s an overview of affiliate marketing.
If you have a blog, you can earn money by affiliate programs.
But how? What do you need to do to get started, you might wonder. How does this work?
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by these questions. But let’s tackle them one by one.
Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to earn money online.
Think of it as writing a blog to promote or sell a particular product or brand.
In return, you will be compensated for your efforts in the amount equivalent to a percentage of the revenue earned by the seller through your website.
To get started, you will need to have an independent website or blog. Your content must be geared toward promoting the product or brand, usually with blog affiliate links or ads that direct the reader back to the seller’s page.
Affiliate marketing is one of my favorite ways to make money with a blog.
The best affiliate programs for bloggers
Are you considering monetizing your website?
Check out these top affiliate networks. These can help you grow your blog revenue and are a great source for passive income.
1. Shareasale.com
Know one big challenge that new bloggers face?
Affiliate networks that have a wider reach usually don’t cater to new bloggers. So if you’re a new blogger, chances are you won’t get accepted at your first application.
But don’t let that pull you down and lose hope.
Here’s a great affiliate network even for new bloggers.
Even though it’s a very popular platform, the best part about this one is that you can get easily approved, whether you’re a newbie blogger or not.
Introducing ShareASale.
Shareasale.com often features smaller-sized, family-owned companies that you need to individually apply. It has a minimum payout of $50, which is made monthly through bank transfer.
It’s a favorite among affiliate marketers because it offers pay-per-sale, pay-per-click, and pay-per-lead opportunities.
Shareasale.com is affiliated with programs like:
- Studio Press,
- CreativeLive,
- Blurb,
- and Grammarly, among others.
Other partners include
- Tailwind,
- Picmonkey,
- Healthy Wage,
- Cents of Style, – they have the cutest clothes for great prices!
- Jane, and
- Groopdealz.
Wondering what to expect with ShareASale?
For almost 20 years, ShareASale has established itself as a leading provider of performance marketing solutions.
With a reputation for fair and honest business dealings, ShareASale seeks to develop bloggers and business through its vast affiliate marketing network.
Here’s how ShareASale works.
As an affiliate marketer, you get access to over 2,500 affiliate marketing programs from which you can earn commissions.
To join this program, you need to have your own website or blog as well as SEO and PPC campaigns.
ShareASale features a five-step sign-up process, which begins with selecting your username and password.
After you complete the sign-up process, you will receive an HTML referral link or banner, which you will incorporate in your websites.
The best thing about ShareASale is that it doesn’t charge fees to join its affiliate program.
2. AWIN Global Affiliate Marketing Network
Do you want to partner with the world’s top brands?
With AWIN Global Affiliate Marketing Network, you can earn money by promoting the products and services of the leading names from around the globe.
AWIN’s merchant partners include,
- M&S,
- Etsy,
- Trip Advisor,
- AliExpress,
- Disney Movie Club,
- Air New Zealand,
- and Groupon.
Did you know AWIN affiliates earned over £614 million last year?
Every day, around 260 affiliates join AWIN’s global affiliate marketing network. With close to 30,000 brands on its networks from across all sectors, you too should join.
Wondering what to expect with AWIN?
Expect little to no payment delays.
If you want faster and more consistent payments, you will love AWIN.
You will receive your payments whether or not AWIN was paid by the merchant-advertiser. This is made possible by the working capital resources that it has.
AWIN also features an easy-to-use and highly intuitive platform. It’s designed to help you manage your affiliate campaigns with ease.
Plus, you get a wide range of tools to assist you in any marketing operation.
Lastly, AWIN takes pride in having an expert support team on standby to help you.
3. Ultimate Bundles
Anybody can write and put a bunch of words together to promote a particular product.
But it takes faith and confidence in a brand to write something that’s credible and convincing.
With Ultimate Bundles, you can promote the products you believe in.
Here’s what you need to know about Ultimate Bundles.
The team at Ultimate Bundles put together a bunch of ebooks, e-courses, workbooks, and audiobooks, selling them in bundles at affordable prices. Talk about enormous discounts, ranging from 90 to 95 percent off.
Each bundle contains around 40 to 100 products. If you consider each item’s price, the total retail value could run in the thousands of dollars. Because it is such a great deal it is an easy sale!
BECOME AND ULTIMATE BUNDLES AFFILIATE
Ultimate Bundles believes in honest promotion. It won’t force you to promote a product book or material you don’t believe in; otherwise, you won’t be giving value to your readers.
So what it does is it gives you an advanced copy of the bundle. This way, you get the opportunity to become familiar with the products and be able to compose content that offers tremendous value to anyone who reads it.
As far as commissions go, Ultimate Bundles is pretty generous.
4. FlexOffers
Would you like to be a part of an awesome affiliate marketing program?
Join FlexOffers.
It offers wonderful opportunities to earn income for work that you can do within the comforts of your home.
Did you know FlexOffers currently has about 12,000 affiliate programs?
With its contribution to many bloggers and affiliate marketers, FlexOffers continues to grow as a reliable network.
You can achieve many things when you join the FlexOffers affiliate marketing program.
Here’s what to expect with FlexOffers.
Get access to a diverse selection of brands and companies when you join FlexOffers. From automotive to international travel.
Its merchant partners include
- Lyft,
- Shoe Carnival,
- Chewy,
- Sephora,
- and Macy’s.
With over 10 years of affiliate marketing experience, FlexOffers received outstanding recognition and continues to be a reliable network to be in.
Other affiliate programs for bloggers.
5. Amazon Associates
If you’re looking for a platform that offers the most affiliate links for bloggers, you can’t go wrong with Amazon. It’s the most popular affiliate program for new and seasoned marketers.
It’s easy to join the Amazon affiliate program. Once approved, you can earn up to 10 percent in commissions on all qualifying purchases.
6. CJ Affiliate
If you’re going to earn money through affiliate programs, go with one of the biggest around.
It may not be as user-friendly as ShareASale, but you get a good chance of securing a good program with CJ Affiliate. Just take the time to learn the platform, and you’re good to go.
CJ Affiliate’s minimum payout is set at $50.
7. Rakuten
Formerly Ebates, Rakuten is affiliated with over 2,000 stores and lets you earn commissions as a blogger and for every referral you make.
The affiliate network usually pays ever quarter with a minimum payout of $5.
8. Creative Market
People looking to buy digital design products go to Creative Market. It’s an online marketplace that features WordPress themes, fonts, vector graphics, and fonts.
Want to earn passive income off these products?
Join Creative Market. You can earn a referral commission when you bring in a new customer.
9. Skimlinks
Skimlinks is a sub-affiliate network that conveniently adds affiliate links in your posts. You don’t have to worry about including it.
The regular links you put it will automatically turn into affiliate links.
10. Shopstyle Collective
Shopstyle Collective is like Skimlinks; it’s also a sub-affiliate network.
But unlike Skimlinks, Shopstyle Collective will pay you per click. How’s that for great income potential. For every click, you earn.
11. Impact Radius
Want to be an affiliate marketer for Target?
Join Impact Radius and work with a wide range of merchants. As a blogger, this affiliate network is a simple and straightforward platform that’s easy to use and navigate.
There are four ways to earn money through these affiliate programs for bloggers.
In blogger affiliate programs, there are four different ways to earn a percentage of the profit.
1. Pay-Per-Sale
Under this set-up, you earn a certain percentage from the sales derived by the seller through your blog or website.
2. Pay-Per-Click
Closing a sale is not important in a pay-per-click set-up. As long as your readers click on the blog affiliate links that direct them to the seller’s website, you earn money.
3. Pay-Per-Lead
It’s somewhat in the middle of pay-per-sale and pay-per-click.
To get your earnings, the visitors of your blog must do two things. First, they need to click on the link that will direct them to the seller’s page, and, second, provide their contact information therein.
4. Pay-Per-Call
Your earnings are determined by the number of calls received by the seller through your marketing efforts.
Five reasons why you should join these affiliate programs for bloggers.
Are you tired of waking up early in the morning and go through traffic-jammed streets on your commute to work?
When you want to veer away from the mind-numbing 9-to-5, get the sweet release through affiliate programs for bloggers.
If you have your own website and join blog affiliate networks, you could start earning.
Need a good reason to join the top affiliate programs for bloggers? In this article, we offer five.
1. You can earn money even while you sleep.
You don’t have to go to the office to earn your keep. Forget the 9-to-5 mindset and pull out of the conventional “regular job” race.
Through these platforms, you can make money with affiliate marketing and you also own your time. It’s a great source of passive income.
Invest time in creating relevant content that aims to promote a product or brand. As web traffic to your blog increases, you’ll see continuous returns.
What’s great about this is that you will continue to receive money months or years after you’ve finished your work. Even while you sleep.
2. You own your time.
Not in the mood to work?
There are times when you’re not feeling it. Perhaps it’s writer’s block or mental exhaustion.
If you’re doing a 9-to-5, you’ll be forced to wake up and get into the grind. Even if you’re not feeling it. Even if you’re ill. Otherwise, you’ll be marked absent at work, which can bear consequences.
But with affiliate marketing, you work when you want to work. You don’t have to get up early, take the commute, and spending mind-numbing hours. You own your time.
If you want to be your own boss, get into the affiliate programs for bloggers.
Affiliate marketing gives you the convenience and flexibility of a freelancer. Ultimately, it is you that sets your own goals and pick your path. But unlike a typical freelancer, you earn even while you sleep.
3. You earn performance-based rewards.
In a typical 9-to-5 setting, you earn the same salary month after month. And even if you put in the extra hours, you’ll only get a little on top of the basic.
But when you join affiliate programs for bloggers, you get compensated handsomely for outstanding work.
And as a commission-based work, earning money can stretch on for months or years. The earning potential increases as time goes by.
4. It’s business that doesn’t require a hefty start-up cost.
You don’t have to make an initial investment. No capital to produce, no expenditures to make. No hassle of coming up with a product or maintaining an inventory.
You play the game that way you want it. Create your own website and choose which brands or products to promote.
5. Work anywhere.
Tired of spending eight hours every day in an office cubicle?
Does working on the beach sound good to you?
Because with affiliate marketing, you can do that. Get the professional independence you want and work anywhere you want.
Go to a café or work at home. Wherever you like. As long as you’re still connected to the internet, you’re good to go.
Tips to becoming a successful affiliate marketer.
Joining affiliate programs for bloggers is a great way to meet your income goals without numbing yourself in a typical 9-to-5 set-up. It offers great revenue potential, which can increase over time if you put in outstanding work.
1. Build rapport with your audience.
When you establish yourself as an expert in a particular field of human activity, you grow your audience base. This paves the way for you to introduce and promote certain products and brands.
If you want to grow your affiliate marketing business, it is crucial that you develop rapport with your audience and cultivate their confidence in you.
The more trustworthy you are, the easier it is for you to market to your audience.
2. Make it personal.
You have an infinite selection of products to promote. So pick those that you personally believe in.
That way, your pitch is more credible, and you’ll be able to market the products or brands effectively.
3. Review products or brands within your niche.
When you’re familiar with the brand or product, it’s easier to write about it and convince people to buy it.
So focus on reviewing items that you know. This helps in coming up with a detailed and articulate content, which may translate to higher conversion rates.
4. Keep up with the latest affiliate marketing trends.
Let’s face it. Competition is serious and tough in this sphere. So if you want to stay on top, you have to stay current and up-to-date with new strategies.
If you remain competitive, your conversion rates will be high, which means a more continuous revenue stream.
Top trends in affiliate marketing
If you’re serious in pursuing affiliate marketing, you should know and keep up with these trends as much as possible.
1. There is an improvement in affiliate attribution and reporting.
Before, many affiliate programs follow the last-click attribution.
To explain this concept, let’s say there are three affiliates that featured the same product. The affiliate that received the last click prior to the sale gets the full credit of the conversion; hence, the name last-click attribution.
Today, there is proper attribution.
So all the affiliates that received the click get a percentage of the sale.
2. Large and small affiliates now stand in equal footing.
Before, large affiliates were the tower of strength; the reliable and the mainstay for many advertisers and sellers.
Today, not so much anymore.
Even if you’re a small affiliate, you can still deliver high-conversion rates if you focus on having the right keywords in your content.
3. There are new regulations on how personal data is collected.
These new guidelines relate to privacy policies and cookie notices. The new rules also require disclosure on affiliate commissions received.
4. Affiliate marketing has greatly evolved since.
Evolution is a natural consequence when the competition gets tougher and the affiliate marketers become smarter.
And with all these changes come more favorable commission structures, which are beneficial to affiliate marketers.
Affiliate marketing is an awesome way to earn money
. . . even while you sleep.
If you’re excited to generate income from your website, try out these affiliate programs for bloggers.
12 thoughts on “The 11 Best Affiliate Programs For Bloggers (In 2021)”
Thank you for all the great and useful information McKenzie!
Aleida
Hey Aleida!
You are so welcome 🙂 Best of luck with your affiliate marketing!
I love this post! Thanks so much for all the info. I’m hoping to launch my blog in the next 2 weeks so this really helps me out.
Hey Julie!
Happy to help 🙂 That is so exciting that you will be launching your blog soon. You may also want to check out these tips I have for launching your blog here: https://momsmakecents.com/launch-your-blog/
I have your blogging course and pinterest course and they are filled with good info for the basics of getting started. But REALLY getting traffic to your blog is super complicated. I have about 4K views on my Pins each month and still haven’t figured out how to make this work. These affiliates are great but I checked out a bunch (I’m already using Share-A-Sale) but you need to have followers or subscribers to get accepted to most of these programs. Not really useful if you’re just starting out.
Hey Laurie!
Thanks for taking the courses and commenting 🙂 Getting traffic to a new site can be a ton of work. I’d recommend reading my case study Blogging For Beginners: What Works In 2019 where I started a brand new site with no followers and was able to generate 20k pageviews in it’s first month. I think you will find some gems in there!
Share-A-Sale is one of the more lenient platforms. Some of the others that are good for new bloggers are Amazon affiliates and Ultimate Bundles. CJ and Flexoffers are harder to get into if you don’t already have an audience or traffic.
Best of luck with getting approved!
— McKinzie
OMG…This is exactly what I was looking for as a new blogger. Your blog is very easy to understand and full of useful information.
I will implement some of these affiliate sites in my blogs immediately.
Thanks for sharing the Love ❤ to newbie bloggers.
Hey Beverly!
Awe that is so kind of you to say! Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment 🙂
XO,
McKinzie
I would suggest Resume Robin affiliate program .. can make great money
I love ShareASale affiliate network, it provides $30 per qualified lead and there are other different affiliate partners like Grammarly that pays $25 quick activation bonus. With ShareASale within 2 months, I’ve earned $56 which is a great money for beginners.
I agree! ShareASale is one of my favorite affiliate networks. They have so many programs and quick payouts. I’ve been really happy with my experiences with them!
This article is really helpful for beginners. I have just started a new blog. After signing up with ShareASale, I am really happy to get an amazing response from them. Highly recommended.