Finding the right affiliate programs is essential to pushing your affiliate marketing business forward, but it is not actually that quick or easy to find the right affiliate program for your business.
Before we get into any detail about how to find the right affiliate programs, let’s just clarify your understanding of what exactly is affiliate marketing.
There are plenty of platforms out there stating they are teaching you affiliate marketing and yet, when we check them out, they are actually a MLM program or Multi-Layer- Marketing.
MLM is where your only focus is on recruiting people up the ladder, so you earn more money. They are typically associated with scams and are not normally offering any value. This leads you to believing affiliate marketing doesn’t work when in reality, it was nothing like real affiliate marketing.
Let’s briefly explain what affiliate marketing so we can then explain what affiliate programs are and how to find them like a pro!
What is Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is where you are going to promote other people’s products or services for a commission.
This is a great way of making money online because you don’t need to have your own products or have a huge warehouse to store products, you just focus on creating fantastic content to promote these products and services and earn money when someone decides to follow your recommendation.
Related Post: Why is Affiliate Marketing so Appealing?
This is where Affiliate Programs fit in.
What Are Affiliate Programs
The easiest example I can use is Amazon. Most new affiliate marketers start out with Amazon and you might have already joined their affiliate program. But if you are still yet to join an affiliate program and want to know a little more, let us explain what exactly affiliate programs are.
An affiliate program is a platform offered by the owner of the product or service. In the example, Amazon offer a way of you being able to promote any product available within Amazon and you will receive a commission for any purchase.
But how do they know who introduced who?
That is why they offer an affiliate account that you sign up for free, that way anytime you choose a particular product to promote they will generate a unique link that tells Amazon it was you who introduced the buyer. They do that through the use of cookies.
Every affiliate will get a unique link so that it is the easiest way of saying “I brought this buyer to you, so I can receive the commission”
You will need to apply to join an affiliate program, they are usually free (be wary if there is a monthly fee – that might not be affiliate marketing or even genuine).
But I am guessing you might already know about Amazon and are looking for other affiliate programs that you might be able to use.
Amazon started the trend of offering affiliate programs and now there are literally thousands of affiliate programs so you can ensure you find the right one for your target audience and expand the offering you have on your blog website.
How to Find Affiliate Programs (The Long & Hard Way)
Many people will typically just suggest that you type “Product + Affiliate Program” or “Company + Affiliate Program” into Google and you can see whether there are any relevant affiliate programs.
It is still an effective way of finding relevant affiliate programs, however the problem with this you are going to have to investigate each and everyone to see if they are any good, what rates they offer, are they available in your country, how do they pay out, etc.
This can mean you are spending hours checking whether the affiliate programs are any good or whether they are really relevant to what you want to promote on your website.
The other thing to consider is that if you eventually end up promoting hundreds of affiliate products, you could end up with hundreds of affiliate programs to sign up with and keep tabs on
You better be good with a spreadsheet, because you are going to have to document all of your log in details and affiliate program details to keep tabs.
The other consideration is the information displayed to you could be completely different each time you join a different affiliate program.
Amazon’s dashboard is relatively good and displays some great information, but smaller companies might not have put as much money into their reports.
You could try an Affiliate Network?
There are always the affiliate networks, these give you access to plenty of affiliate programs and these will show you some relevant information you need. The most popular affiliate networks are:
Whether you are searching via Google or Searching through the affiliate networks, it takes time to review affiliate programs and to see whether they are any good.
You will need to apply for each affiliate program you want to use and if you are still relatively new you might still get rejected when you do apply.
But there is an easier way to apply, manage and get real useful information on relevant affiliate programs for your chosen niche…
How to Find Affiliate Programs (The Easy Way with Wealthy Affiliate)
Wealthy Affiliate has just launched their Affiliate Program platform, and this is a game changer when it comes to finding affiliate programs. It offers useful information about affiliate programs and you can join the affiliate program direct from your Wealthy Affiliate dashboard. No need for loads of sign in details. Manage these all from your Wealthy Affiliate account.
How Does the WA Affiliate Platform Work?
For any examples I am going to use the wedding category, that is because we also run a wedding stationary business and so it is highly relevant to that business. (I can do some research whilst showing you how it all works).
The below screenshot is the screen you see when you click onto the Affiliate Programs tab on WA.
The information you get is:
Popular Categories – useful if you are still considering a niche for your affiliate marketing business
Popular Keywords – What are other members searching for, again might be useful for niche research
Trending Opportunities – Great for Niche research
High Commission – Affiliate Programs with high rates of commission ($)
High Percentage – Affiliate Programs with high rates of commission (%)
Top Rated – Affiliate Programs are reviewed by WA members, so you get a good look at worthwhile affiliate programs.
Searching for Relevant Affiliate Programs
You have a choice of the how to refine your search. At the moment the settings are checked to look at all. But if you click on the box that states All, you can refine it down via categories – see the screenshot below:
The second way to refine your search is to click the button that is indicated in the image below:
That is a great way of making sure the search is as relevant as it can be to you.
You can search via:
- Country Availability – Is it available in your country
- Payout Options – How do you want to get paid?
- Is There a Network Fee?
- Auto Approval
- Commission Rate – $ or %
- Rating – What do WA members think about the program
Once you have refined your search, this takes away a lot of the affiliate programs that are not relevant to you. This will save you a lot of time when searching for affiliate programs.
Like I said I am going to search for affiliate programs related to Weddings, and as we are in the UK I have made sure the affiliate program results are ok for me to apply for. So, once I have ticked the relevant options my next step is to type “wedding” into the searchbox. Here is the results I got:
Now, let’s dissect the information that is displayed at this stage. If we use the first product that is available, it is for Wedding Ceremonies Book.
Now, as this platform is really new there is little information at the moment, but it is still useful to consider the information we can see at this stage. (we will get more info in a moment).
- Commission: 40%
- Network: Clickbank
- Payout Options: Paypal, Cheque, Wire, ACH
Think about what is most relevant, most people will be drawn by the commission rate. But if you click on the image you can get even more detail, see the screenshot below to see what you get to see:
Direct from your WA dashboard, you get all the information needed to be able to check out the affiliate program, go and check out the website and see if the product list is good for your blog and you can even join the program from this one page.
As you start exploring affiliate programs and actually joining them, you can even help out other members by leaving a review about the affiliate program to help others know more about the affiliate program and you will also be able to learn from what others think about the affiliate program.
That way you only need to apply for affiliate programs that you actually need and use.
Consider where this platform will be in a year’s time and you will have a comprehensive tool to understand affiliate programs and the beauty is that Wealthy Affiliate are working towards having vendors incorporated into the platform so you will be able to directly communicate with the owners of these programs to get a better understanding.
Know that Wealthy Affiliate is constantly evolving to stay at the top of the best affiliate marketing platform for both beginners and those looking for ways to scale their affiliate business to the next level.
How to Find the Right Affiliate Programs?
The thing for me is when in the past I have been looking for affiliate programs, you are typically going in blind. Yes, Amazon is a great place to get started with but lets be honest the commision rate is not that great and so when you are ready to take the next step you want to start looking into other products.
But it can be a minefield out there. Some affiliate programs will be outstanding and others will be promoting crappy products. Clickbank is a prime example due to the fact they do not do any checks before someone can add a product on.
But with the platform on Wealthy Affiliate you will get information about the affiliate programs all in one place and be able to research in a much easier fashion then anywhere else online.
This Affiliate Program Platform is only one part of the whole Wealthy Affiliate program, let me just share what else Wealthy Affiliate can offer you.
What Other Benefits Are There with Wealthy Affiliate?
Whether you are just starting out in affiliate marketing, are struggling to get your affiliate marketing business off the ground or looking on how to scale your affiliate business to the next level – Wealthy Affiliate is our No.1 Recommended Product.
Kyle & Carson designed Wealthy Affiliate to help people with their affiliate marketing business. They share their knowledge willingly and offer a comprehensive platform with everything you would need for a reasonable price.
Training
The primary training within Wealthy Affiliate is the Online Certification Course and is designed for someone just starting out to fully understand affiliate marketing and to be able to create a solid foundation in the form of a website.
But there are some fundamental and awesome hints and tips included within the training to ensure that you are creating the right content with the right keywords to increase your conversion rates.
In my experience, there are people who think they know affiliate marketing and then they go through the comprehensive training within Wealthy Affiliate and they soon realise where they have been going wrong and it has ended up costing them time and money because they had some poor advice in the first place.
Outside of the OEC training, there are 13 classrooms all filled with training on certain aspects of an online business that could benefit you.
If you want to learn more about WordPress, you check out the training within that classroom.
Want to learn more about Search Engine Optimisation (your route to free traffic) then check out the SEO classroom.
Being able to keep up-to-date with the online world is a must and the regular updates are very welcome to ensure we are going in the right direction.
Weekly Webinars
Another great feature is the weekly webinars hosted by Jay. As a premium member you can join live or watch a recording after. Tackling a number of different subjects, they offer a fantastic opportunity to learn from an expert.
WordPress Website Hosting & Tools
Ok, you might already have a website if you are looking for how to find the right affiliate programs but when you factor in where your website is hosted and the possible benefits of transferring your website to be hosted at Wealthy Affiliate – you might be surprised by what is included within a premium membership.
If you have a Wealthy Affiliate premium membership you can host up to 25 full domains and also benefit from hosting an additional 25 sub-domains. Other than the cost of registering a domain name, which you would have to do anywhere you do not pay anything other than your membership.
How is that different to other providers?
Well, if you currently have a free website elsewhere it will typically be a subdomain.
What is the difference, a sub domain is not really your own property? It will typically look like “website.wix.com” if you had a free website at wix, your website would look like that.
When you factor in the fact you need trust for people to follow your advice and make purchases for you to make money, a full domain would bring more authority and trust with it than a subdomain.
But you will also notice that when your website starts getting any significant traffic you then have to start upgrading your website account which involves paying for the privilege.
They normally work on a tier system and when you consider you need to start achieving 1,000’s of visits to your website to really make money you can start seeing how much you would need to pay to maintain that (supposedly) free website.
Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t want you to worry about traffic numbers, your website can accept any traffic you can bring to your website without having to pay extra for it.
Another great feature that is free with WA and is an additional charge elsewhere is an SSL certificate. Yes, SSL Certificates are included in a WA Premium Membership.
You will notice we have a padlock symbol against our website and this is because we care about your security – I have seen this charged at up to $200 a year for one website. I do not pay anything above my Wealthy Affiliate membership and can have up to 50 websites with an SSL certificate at no extra cost.
Haven’t Got a Website Yet?
If you are just starting out and not sure about paying for anything just yet, I can totally understand. You are at the unknown stage and want to test the water before jumping in.
Wealthy Affiliate totally understand this and that is why they offer a free starter membership where you can create your own free subdomain website and truly see what they have to offer.
Already Got a Website?
Whatever you are paying for elsewhere, transferring your WordPress website to Wealthy Affiliate is really easy, but will require the premium membership. But at this point you would only pay $49/month and benefit from a hosting service that offers top quality features without the price for them.
The premium hosting at WA would typically be charged at $250 a month and yet they offer it within the membership.
Site Plus Features
On top of the SSL certificates, they also offer a few other amazing features to ensure your audience get the best experience out of their visit to your website. These include:
Site Speed – “Better Rankings, Better Engagement & a 100% Better Experience for Your Website”.
Nobody likes a website that doesn’t load very quickly and most of us will typically navigate away from a website if it is not loading. This option ensures your website is always loading quickly and efficiently.
Site Protect – This tool is designed to tackle spam at the point of the server and not let it hit your website.
Page Speed Insights
This is a great tool to identify what issues might be slowing down a particular page on your website. I have found that whilst most are fine when it comes to desktop view, most of us are now viewing on mobile and the loading time is considerably slower unless you know about it and can do something about it.
Other Features Included
The two screenshots below all of the additional features that are included with a Wealthy Affiliate account and know that most of these are not normally included even when you are paying elsewhere.
Expert Help & Support
In my opinion, this is what makes Wealthy Affiliate our top recommended platform. Whether you are new to affiliate marketing, struggling to get it off the mark or even if you are more experienced. The help and support that you will receive within Wealthy Affiliate is second to none.
Kyle and Carson are the owners and are regularly seen within the community helping people. You will see them jumping into the Live Chat to answer a question or offer an insight in the Q & A section.
They are constantly upgrading and improving the platform, for example the Affiliate Program platform that we have been talking about in this post. Consider they already have the next year mapped out with the program and the paint isn’t even dry on it.
Jay offers weekly webinars that cover a magnitude of subjects and will always make sure you walk away with the knowledge you need.
You will also benefit from the help and support of members like myself. You may have a question to ask, or a technical problem that someone can help with.
If you have your own experience, you can also offer this too.
Creating training is a feature that unlocks after 3 months as a premium member, if you have training to offer you can start to earn cash credits which can easily cover your monthly fee too.
Wealthy Affiliate is the Real Deal for Affiliate Marketers!!
Hopefully you know how Wealthy Affiliate can help you to find the right affiliate programs for your niche. But also, you may find that there is so much more that Wealthy Affiliate offers you that you can see why we totally recommend it to anyone who needs to benefit from training and support with affiliate marketing.
If you want to see what else Wealthy Affiliate you can check out our Wealthy Affiliate review or our useful post How does the Wealthy Affiliate work?
Thanks for reading our post on how to find the right affiliate programs. We would love to hear from you, did you find it useful? Have you still got questions around affiliate programs or Wealthy Affiliate? If so, please write them in the comments below and we will definitely come back to you as soon as we can. Thanks
Very engaging topic you have discussed here. Firstly, I really appreciate your simplicity in delivering this piece, and also the fact that you introduced wealthy Affiliate as a better alternative to securing a worthy investment on affiliate marketing. Securing the right paying affiliate programs is a great way to get up and running as a marketer and this is what wealthy Affiliate offers readily available to anyone. Though I started out with MLM and I lost a great deal but I believe in affiliate marketing because I have seen people with success stories around me and I know its real.
Hi RoDarrick,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. Affiliate Marketing is a great option for those just looking to get started online and I love the fact you can choose a subject you actually have an interest in.
Wealthy Affiliate is a fantastic option for those just starting out and it will take them by the hand through the steps required to succeed.
Thanks again
John
Hi,
I am an affiliate marketer and I am always on the look-out where to get my next affiliate program. Thanks a bunch for sharing those Affiliate Network: Awin, ShareaSale, ClickBank, Rakuten, and CJ.
Personally, I’ve used Rakuten and CJ and although joining is free, many of the affiliate programs that they are selling are not really easy to market. Of course, they only curate affiliate programs and handle the transactions. Nothing more, nothing less.
You mentioned WA has an affiliate platform as well. On top of that, they offer training, weekly webinars, WordPress website and tools, and many more. I’m guessing membership is not free? I mean with all of this goodies, there must have a fee?
I’m also wondering if WA has its own affiliate program for themselves? Their services seem legit to me and I am pretty sure many people who are just starting out with blogging and affiliate marketing can benefit from WA.
How do you sign up for WA?! Sorry, I’m kind of blind, can’t find it in your article. Would you be able to help me with that?
Regards,
JG
Hey JG,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments.
As with anything you need to do your research, as I agree some of the products on these networks are not worth your time or effort. But by using the information displayed within the WA platform you will get a real good idea of how good the affiliate program is.
Wealthy Affiliate is a comprehensive platform and is fantastic and it offers two membership levels. A free starter membership, which gives you a great in-depth look into how it all works. The premium membership is $49/month or $359/year. That charge has not changed since its inception and is a fantastic price for everything that is included.
If you are wanting to sign up with the free starter membership to see it for yourself, you can click this link here.
But I will also add a button to the bottom of this post too.
thanks
John
Hi John
This is a great article about to find a right affiliate programs like a pro.
After reading this article I got a lot of information about affiliate marketing, how affiliate marketing works, what is it’s strategy, and also what is affiliate marketing.
Wealthy affiliate is one of the best platform for the affiliate markers I think so. It provides a top ranking training course best instructors as well as a best community for any kind of help.
Just asking, do I need a blogging website for blog post in affiliate marketing?
Overall I like the way of this writing and describing method. Thanks for the article.
Hey Touhidur,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. Glad we were able to help with your understanding around affiliate marketing.
The advantages of having your own website are immense. To be successful you need to build up an authority within your niche, a website will also become your brand. If you go and put all of your eggs in one basket on social media, what happens if you find that social media doesn’t really connect with your niche… You get stuck with a social media account that you cannot do anything with.
Google+ has just been closed down, so if you had only promoting via that platform, you would have no business anymore.
You own website allows you to seek the right target audience and remember 90% of the searches go through Google, so you want your website to appear on google to get to an audience who is going to be interested in purchasing your recommendations.
hope that helps
John
Hi John, I must say that this article is very informative and helpful. Today is not so easy to find relevant affiliate network but with Wealthy Affiliate, this process can’t be easier.
I was struggling to find health-related programs and I heard about this new feature of wealthy affiliate so I wanted to give it a try.
It is unbelievable how they simplified the entire process and make it super easy to discover trusted and quality affiliate networks. I can’t stop using it.
Hey Daniel,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. I agree with you, it has been painful to find the right affiliate programs in the past. But this new platform from the guys at Wealthy Affiliate is just the trick.
It is so simple to use, as with everything WA does – it can help anyone of an skill level.
All the best
John
Thank you for the clear description of how the new Wealthy Affiliate Platform for Affiliate Programs works. I especially like your presentation of search by Popular Keywords or search by Trending Opportunities.
These features will allow me to take a second look at my individual niche. I may have selected a niche that is important to me, but if there is no sufficient interest in this niche by the general population I will not make any money, since I will not be able to develop sufficient traffic.
If the goal of my niche is to make money being able to find out what is trending on the Internet is vital.
Your article also shows a very comprehensive description of what is offered in the Wealthy Affiliate Platform.
Your article presents all the information that a prospective Affiliate Marketer needs to get started.
Hey Carlos,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. It is always a good idea to keep re-evaluating what your niche is and more importantly, who your target audience is to be able to help people get the information they are looking for.
thanks
John
Hi dear
I have been looking for affiliate program to join but I didn’t know how to do it. So, thank you for this great post. Now I know how and where to find a good affiliate program. I have worked on my blog for sometimes already, so I need to join one now.
I particularly like the option offered with Wealthy Affiliate. Because, it is much more easy to use. So, all I need to do is to join Wealthy Affiliate as a premium member, and I will have that option within my dashboard. That’s cool!
Thanks for sharing!
Hi,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments.
It looks like you are on your way to a great foundation. The most common issue is people rushing to join up with affiliate programs when they haven’t got any traffic yet.
But looks like you are set and are ready to join some affiliate programs. The platform within WA will allow you find relevant programs for you to join with some high-quality information too.
thanks
John
Dear John,
The post is so comprehensive, this is the best information about the affiliate I have ever read! Really, thank you for that, is a great guide for all, who are looking for complete information about affiliate and are not sure how/where to start! The very important thing to mention is that premium member of the Wealthy affiliate has a lot of useful features available, the member does not need to solve hosting of the website, nor the theme or other useful plugin purchase as all of that is already in the monthly subscription fee. This is really unique on the internet and makes WA a great place, where to start the affiliate journey. The community is so supportive and always offer helping hand where needed. Personally, I recommend it.
You have mentioned Amazon as a great affiliate program, have you heard anyone about Aliexpress affiliate? Nobody mentioning this, currently a very big player on the internet market, so I am curious if you have any experience with this company in relation to affiliate marketing? Thank you again and looking forward to another post.
Best regards
Renata
Hey Renata,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. I agree, the community is one of the best features of Wealthy Affiliate and with that kind of support it means anyone can achieve success as long as they work hard and ask questions when they need to.
At this moment, no I haven’t heard of AliExpress. But I have just had a quick look at their website and will do some research prior to publishing my thoughts on it. thanks for the idea!
thanks
John
You have furnished a very thorough review here. I love all the information about the new affiliate program platform in Wealthy Affiliate. That new innovation is totally unique, and will be most helpful for me. I want to find a few more suppliers.
I do want to disagree with one thing, at least in part. Many MLMs are scams, but some companies are well-organized and thoughtfully set up. I belonged to one for 10 years because I loved their products, and still think it’s a fine company.
I do agree, though, that Wealthy Affiliate is the best affiliate marketing choice. For one thing, their training is superb, and for another, the community is an awesome organization, as they take the company’s philosophy of helping others in order to help oneself to a new level. I am also totally in awe of their site support. Problems are solved in minutes! Excellent.
All in all, I agree with your assessment of Wealthy Affiliate and am very glad I, too, have chosen to join.
Hey Fran,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. I take your point about some MLM products. My point was more around MLM products that are claiming to be affiliate marketing when they are not. If you are a genuine MLM company, be upfront about it and be honest – then I would be happy to recommend it.
Unfortunately not all of them are like that.
Thanks for your thoughts on Wealthy Affiliate too.
All the best
John
John, Overall I am really impressed with your article on how to find the right affiliate programs. The first Affiliate program I started with was Amazon. I got my feet wet with it and lost the account because of inactivity due to circumstances beyond my control. But was able to sign back up again. With new people, they should Read and Understand the Terms of Service of Amazon when they get started. As well as any other companies.
I have checked out the new Affiliate Programs link that WA added and it looks good. Now after your detailed explanation of it in the article, it is taking on an entirely new look.
Here is one question that I just thought of. Is it possible to have too many different Affiliate Program links in an article from different Affiliate companies?
That is one thing that I noticed immediately about Wealthy Affiliate when I joined. They are already top of the notch and the best Affiliate Marketing program available with the most comprehensive training program in the industry. Always working to keep the training above any others with Tried and Proven methods.
Sonny
Hey Sonny,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. You are right, it is really important to check out what you are signing up for. You want to fully understand the affiliate program before signing up.
Too many affiliate links is a problem, regardless of whether you are promoting one product or more on a post.
You do not want to seem like you are littering your post with affiliate links everywhere. My opinion is the link needs to be relevant.
If you are doing a best of post and have ten products, then it is relevant to have ten affiliate links. But if you are not helping people with why you think they are the best and just have a list of ten products with links, the search engines might not rank your website.
You need high rankings to get traffic. Hope that makes sense, come back to me if you need any help
John