Looking for the best paying affiliate network? Are you trying to make money as an affiliate? Are you stuck on choosing a niche? Don’t know where to start or what to do? Then this may just the thing you need to read before you waste anymore time or money…
Here’s a question I just got asked and I wanted to shed some light on this subject…because it’s kinda of a loaded question – let me explain…
Different Strokes For Different Folks
That’s a line from the old Sly Stone song, Everyday People. And oddly enough it rings true in marketing as well. Here’s a flashback…
There are many affiliate programs and affiliate networks. Some people like promoting Amazon products and if you ask them what’s the best affiliate program they would say it’s Amazon!
Then you have those diehard Clickbank marketers who only promote CB products. If you ask them what’s the best affiliate program they would say Clickbank.
Are you ready to pull your hair out yet?
This May Be the Better Question to Ask…
Your goals as an online marketer are to provide solutions to people’s problems and in turn get paid for it. Whatever dreams you have for your family can only come true if you make money. Let’s be clear about that…
So, what does it take to make money?
Understanding it’s about traffic and conversions – and matching the offer to the right kind of traffic.
If you were selling hair combs, would you try to go out and market to men who have no hair? Well of course not. You wouldn’t get very many conversions if any at all. In fact, if you did any paid marketing, odds are you would lose a whole lot of money because you didn’t match the offer to the traffic.
If you get that, then you’re far ahead of most marketers online…many of whom struggle greatly. Don’t forget that you need a home business mindset right from the get go because this isn’t a hobby but a way to change your financial future.
So, how do you start to choose an affiliate program?
Some people start by choosing a niche and finding offers that would appeal to that niche. You can find offers on such sites like Clickbank, Commission Junction, JV Zoo, etc…
Some people find offers that they think would convert well and then drive traffic directly to that page, a pre-sell page, or to their squeeze page. People find offers on the sites listed above and also on affiliate networks like Peerfly.
There are some people who only like CPA offers, whereas there are people who only like Amazon products; and then there are those who like to promote the higher paying offers like GRN. Some people just mix it up with all kinds of offers.
Next comes traffic…
How You Promote May Determine Your Affiliate Programs
Choosing an offer may be the simple part, if I can call it that, but the bread and butter is getting traffic to convert on your offer.
If you’re going to do SEO (search engine optimization), you’ll want to see what kind of keywords are available (i.e. that you can rank for) that you can target.
If the keywords are going to be quite hard to rank for, then you may want to consider promoting another product or find other means to generate traffic.
If you’re going to shell out some money for paid traffic, then you’ll have more room to experiment and find out what traffic works well for your offer. The caveat is that it can take you testing various traffic methods and landing pages until you find a combination that works – and that could cost you a lot of money.
In a nutshell, you’ve got to decide how you’re going to drive traffic to your offers. The traffic methods you’re going to use may play a huge role in what kind of offers you’ll end up promoting.
The List of Affiliate Networks and Affiliate Programs
Now this list isn’t meant to be complete but just a way to get the ball rolling. Some of the listings below are either affiliate networks, websites that have their own affiliate program
Here she goes…
- Clickbank
- Commission Junction
- Share a Sale
- JV Zoo
- Pay Dot Com
- eBay
- Amazon
- Walmart
- Target
- Drugstore.com
- Expedia
- Offer Vault – List offers that are on CPA Networks
- NeverBlue – CPA Affiliate Network
- Peerfly – CPA Affiliate Network
Network Marketing Affiliate Programs and Products
Travel Programs
- Global Resorts Network Affiliate – High commission travel program. The benefits of this program is that you get a faster turn-around of commissions and the payouts are up to $6k per sale.
- Travelocity – Well known travel site. Also has a private branded program (white label) program.
- Outside Agents – You get to become a real travel agent by working with this host agency. This is not an affiliate program per se, but if you want to be a travel agent in the true sense of the word, then this would be one of the best ways to go.
Putting It All Together
Now that you’ve kinda narrowed it down to perhaps a certain kind of affiliate product or a niche, your next step is to get traffic. Now this is where most people get stuck.
There are many ways to drive traffic. I’ve alluded to paid methods and SEO earlier. But more specifically, you’ve got to know how you plan to get enough eyeballs on your offers so you can make some cash.
Are you going to do Pay Per Click? ArticleMarketing/Syndication? Solo Ads? I suggest you pick one method and get good at it so that’s it’s producing sales for you before you add on additional methods.
For learning just about paid traffic generation, I recommend this buy web site traffic course. If you’re a network marketer (and even if you’re not), MLSP has some kick butt training on lead generation on social media sites like Facebook…not to mention you can earn multiple checks with MLSP.
So, what’s the best affiliate program? The one that you can make money with.
Your partner in success,
