Best Affiliate Programs for Beginners

The affiliate marketing industry has a lot of income potential, especially for beginners who apply the right strategies. Despite its high level of competitiveness, affiliate marketing can represent a wonderful opportunity to make passive income, but only if approached correctly. So, as a beginner, what are the best affiliate programs to focus on?

The best affiliate programs for beginners should be well-known to their respective target markets, thus easy to advertise and market. Besides popularity, you should aim to start with affiliate programs that are fairly easy to join, have friendly offers for affiliates, and aren’t too competitive.

If you’re still reading, then you must be curious about the right steps to observe when getting started with affiliate marketing. Luckily, we’ve curated a list of some of the best sites to kickstart your journey in the affiliate industry. Ready? Then, let’s jump straight to business!

E-Commerce

E-commerce is a great way to dive into the waters of affiliate marketing. However, before you start thinking about the millions you can make while promoting e-commerce products, it’s important to note that the niche is highly competitive and that you’ll need to focus on a particular product(s) that interest you.

Below are some of the leading e-commerce sites to get started on.

Amazon Associates

Amazon is a great way to start your affiliate marketing journey. The site has thousands, if not millions, of products that you can advertise. Your work as an affiliate will be to generate external traffic to the site.

Amazon’s commission rates vary depending on the types of products you’re looking to promote. As a result, it’s important to check on products that best suit your income targets. However, be warned that the well-paying product categories are highly competitive, so you’ll need to invest in high-quality content and marketing strategies to face off with the established big boys.

eBay

eBay is another fantastic e-commerce site to consider as a beginner. The e-commerce site is well known globally, meaning someone is likely to be searching for a product on the site every second. Your job will be to connect the buyers to the sellers by advertising products, their discounts, and offers.

On eBay, you can earn from driving traffic that results in sales. Since most clients usually search for what they need, funneling potential clients to eBay’s high-converting pages shouldn’t be too much of an issue. The eBay portal will provide you with comprehensive reports and intuitive tools to help you improve, manage, and understand your results.

Related Post: Etsy Affiliate Program Review – Can you make money with their program?

Website Affiliate Programs

Marketing websites is also another great way to start as a beginner. However, to succeed in this niche, you’ll need to know a thing or two about websites to come off as an authority.

Below are top websites affiliate programs that shouldn’t be too hard to join.

Wix

Marketing this website builder can help you earn loads of cash in passive income. The beauty of Wix is it’s always marketing itself in efforts to compete with the likes of WordPress. This means that you won’t need to do much in terms of promoting the site to new clients.

Since websites are becoming basic necessities for online entrepreneurs, the chances of finding interested clients are high. Besides their friendly cookie duration period of 90 days, Wix gives its affiliates the chance to make up to $100 per successful sale of their premium packages.

BigCommerce

This SaaS e-commerce site has over 60,000 merchants and continues to attract more due to its advanced functionality and built-in features that appeal to growing brands. Affiliates get to earn a mouthwatering 200% bounty payment on each plan’s price.

This means that you can make up to $1500 for a single paying customer. Pretty neat, right?

Moreover, the site’s 90-day cookie policy is friendly and favorable for affiliates. Plus, the weekly newsletter for affiliates, text links, banners, SEO advice, and content templates will help you thrive as an affiliate partner on the site.

Travel Affiliate Programs

Do you love to travel and can take great, high-quality photos as proof of your enthusiasm for travel? If so, then perhaps you should try working as an affiliate in the traveling niche. Below are some of the best sites to consider in the highly lucrative niche.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor tops the list as one of the best sites for affiliate marketing in the travel industry. However, to get approved, your site will need to come off as an authority in the travel industry. While this might appear difficult as a beginner, it is pretty straightforward if you have enough content and quality photos of your travel experiences.

TripAdvisor has a cookie duration period of 14 days and pays its partners a lucrative 50% commission on hotel bookings, restaurant reservations, and vacation packages. Getting started on the site is pretty straightforward, plus the affiliate marketer’s dashboard is easy to use.

Travelpayouts

You can earn a decent amount of cash once approved to join the Travelpayouts affiliate program. The site covers a wide array of services and partners with sites like Airbnb, Booking.com, rentalcars.com, among other travel-related sites.

Travelpayouts has one of the best support teams as they’re super responsive in terms of feedback. The site also gives its affiliate partners unlimited access to unique, customized affiliate tools like widgets, White Label, deep links, API, and Mobile SDK, among others.

Starting out as a beginner on this site is straightforward due to its easy onboarding process, while the useful information provided on the site’s blogs and case studies will help you know the program’s ins and outs.

Tips to Consider Before Joining an Affiliate Program

Affiliate marketing is a wonderful opportunity to make passive income. However, due to the high level of competition, you’ll need to package yourself as an authority to start making money as an affiliate.

Below are some important tips to consider as you get started in the affiliate industry.

Find a Niche You’re Passionate About

Affiliate marketing is more than just advertising products to a bunch of willing clients. You’ll need to come off as a friendly (and knowledgeable) expert, lest your site’s bounce rate will be extremely high.

Therefore, try finding a niche that you’re both passionate and knowledgeable about. Doing so will allow you to package yourself as an authority, and clients love taking advice from people who appear to know enough about a particular subject matter.

Don’t Go for Commissions First

Sites with the best commission rates are also the most competitive. There’s no way your baby site will compete against affiliate sites that have made thousands of dollars in cumulative affiliate earnings. Instead of commission rates, look at the terms of sites and apply to those that appear to have the best entry packages for new partners.

Check on Tools and Support

As you’re getting started, you’ll need all the help you can find. Check if the site you’re interested in registering on has enough tools to help new affiliates get started. Do they have a responsive support team? Do they provide banners, text links, and other useful products?

Partnering with affiliate-friendly sites will help you get started and develop your site gradually through the months and years.

Wrapping Up

The websites we’ve discussed in this post are among the best in the market for beginner affiliates. Granted, these aren’t the only affiliate programs you can try out, as there are thousands of others that have beginner-friendly terms and conditions.

To succeed as an affiliate, it’s best to find a program that you’re passionate about. You’ll also need to invest in high-quality content and digital marketing strategies to establish your site as an authority. No matter what strategy you opt to adopt, patience is a virtue that’ll come in handy, especially as you work your way up.