Now that you know what Wealthy Affiliate is about (click here if you missed that article) and you know what Affiliate Marketing is, I would like to introduce you to a handful of free affiliate programs. Once you have your website or blog, app. etc. up and running, you will most likely be anxious to start monetizing it. Before I get into the affiliate programs let me give you my thoughts on when to add affiliates to your website.
∗As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This post contains affiliate links, if you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a commission. I may also be compensated through other links on this post, and all ‘opinions’ are my own.
Traffic First
It’s best to get a decent amount of traffic coming to your website before applying to affiliate programs. If you join or have joined Wealthy Affiliate, they will walk you through this and give you step-by-step instructions.
Once you apply, most affiliate programs will take a look at your site to be sure your content is relevant to their products and they will take a look at your traffic to determine whether or not your site would be beneficial to them (by how many visitors you get).
With that said, some programs will not accept you until you have a certain amount of traffic. Other programs will accept you if you have a good deal of relevant content and some traffic. There are even a few programs that don’t have an approval process at all, you just sign up and you’re instantly approved.
I personally suggest that you hold off on the application process until you have some decent traffic. I know you are excited to start making money, so was I. However, if you don’t have traffic, you won’t make sales, period. So put all of your efforts into building relevant content and then share that content on social media. Spread the word, find your targeted audience, and get them to visit your website. Gain their trust and google’s trust with your helpful content. Get some traffic flowing and then, have at it, make money!
Make Money
Once you are ready to apply for affiliate programs and begin monetizing your website, you will search for relevant programs. You can search for them by typing your niche or brand along with ‘affiliate program’ into google search. Let’s say my niche is soccer. I would search for soccer affiliate programs and find affiliate programs like soccer.com, Upper 90, and Soccerloco. I would then go to their website and apply to be an affiliate.
You will likely find and be approved for several affiliate programs you don’t need to use ALL of them. As a matter of fact, just one or two will probably suffice. Perhaps you could use a different affiliate on each page or post, or maybe just one altogether. It is your website and is ultimately up to you, however, try not to go crazy with the affiliate links and banners or ads. The last thing you want is for your site to have too many distractions or look spammy.
If you join Wealthy Affiliate, this will be explained in much more detail along with instructions on how to apply and how to go about adding the links to your website. Below I will tell show you some popular affiliates that you can get started with. Click on the title to go directly to their sign-up page.
ShareASale
ShareASale is one of my favorite Affiliate Programs, they serve the affiliate and the merchant. They have more than 2500 merchants offering their products or services and you won’t get kicked out for not making sales right away. There’s also a lot of big-name merchants with decent commission rates.
ClickBank
ClickBank has more than six million digital products. A high-paying program (up to 75%) where many of the products available, are sold on a recurring subscription basis, which means you can continue earning on that one sale. Personally, I’m not a fan of ClickBank, the products are just not for me but I will let you make your own decisions.
CJ Affiliate
CJ Affiliate previously known as Commission Junction has over 3,000 merchants to choose from. They include some of the world’s most widely recognized brands such as Office Depot, Barnes & Noble, Go Pro, and Priceline, just to name a few. You should definitely have a good amount of traffic before applying with CJ Affiliate. They have slightly stricter rules and you need to show some results within the first six months or you may be deactivated.
Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is a great choice for beginners and with their millions of products, you are sure to find plenty of relevant items to promote. Commission rates are between 1% and !0%. Once approved you will have 180 days to make a sale otherwise your account will be closed. As I’ve mentioned before, it may be best to apply for affiliate programs once you have some decent traffic visiting your website. Don’t worry though, you can always re-apply once you do have traffic or have made any adjustments necessary.
eBay Partner Network
eBay has plenty of products to suit your needs. They have a quick online application and it only takes a few minutes to get started. Commission rates are 50% to 70% of eBay’s revenue share. Additionally, if a new or reactivated buyer clicks on your link your commission will double.
Fiverr Affiliates
Fiverr is the largest freelance marketplace in the world. Get paid to drive traffic to their website. They offer commissions from $15 to $150. With their CPA commission plan, each first-time buyer purchase is payable.
WordPress Engine
WP Engine is the best WordPress hosting and they pay out a whopping $200 per referral or 100% of the first month’s payment (whichever is higher). Co-branded landing pages and banners help you promote WP Engine hosting. You will find WP Engine inside ShareASale.
Fotor
Fotor pays a whopping %35 commission per sale. Surpassing its rivals in providing powerful and user-friendly features, including Graphics Designers, Beautification Suites, a slew of photo enhancers and optimizers, collage maker, and HDR capabilities, Fotor truly is the all-in-one visual platforms. You will find Fotor inside ShareASale.
Enjoy Your Search
I hope that the above-mentioned affiliate programs have provided you with some useful insights. Those were just a few, there are a plethora of affiliate programs out there, and searching for the perfect one can actually be a lot of fun. I really enjoy the challenge of trying to find the perfect product for my niche and I especially enjoy seeing the results of adding those links to my website. I hope you enjoy your search, whether you prefer networks or in-house programs, there are plenty to choose from.
Thank you for the wealth of information!
Best of luck to you!
Julie
You bet Julie! I wish you the best as well, Take Care!
Hello there, thanks for this awesome article. I’m sure it will be of great help to the public as it has been to me. Thanks for this list of free affiliate programs, It’s a really a very comprehensive list and I must tell you, I didn’t know about some of them and I am going to check them out.
I’m glad to hear that you found my article useful. Let me know if I can help you in your search for affiliate programs. Thanks for visiting and taking the time to comment.
This site is terrific! I’m still very new with WA and I’m actually going through the training on affiliate programs and networks now. Your site added to the knowledge of the training. I was familiar with some of the programs you listed but learned about some new ones as well. Thanks for sharing,
Julie
Thank you for the comments Julie. Congratulations on finding your way to WA, I know that you will be very successful. I’m happy to hear that my article was of use to you and that you found some new free affiliate programs. Have a great day!
Thanks a lot for sharing with us these amazing free affiliate programs.
I’m a premium member on Wealthy Affiliate and I can tell you, that this was the best decision I ever made. I learn every day how to become a successful entrepreneur. I have created some websites where I promote different products and I earn some passive income by omissions. I really appreciate that you recommend this platform and I think that every person who wants to have their own business and make money online should join Wealthy Affiliate.
Wish you all the best !
I’m happy to hear that you’re a premium member at WA! I agree, anyone who wants to build a business online and become an affiliate marketer should definitely start at Wealthy Affiliate. The training and support is phenomenal. Thanks for taking the time to look over my article and leave your comment. I wish you much success!
I couldn’t agree with you more Tracy, that a site must have traffic to be successful. A beginning entrepreneur could promote the ‘hottest,’ ‘top of the line’ products, but it doesn’t mean anything if no one will see it. No income made. When I first started online marketing, I made many mistakes in regards to advertising. Not many affiliate marketing programs back then, but I got by the best I could. Now with the emergence of WA, any marketer can succeed.
Hello RJ! I’ve made my own advertising mistakes as well, but it’s ok, that’s how we learn and grow. Thanks to WA, I am back on track and making sales. You’re right, anybody can be successful with affiliate marketing. Hopefully my article helps a few people realize how important it is to get traffic to your website before adding a bunch of links. Thanks for the comment.
I have some knowledge about these free to join affiliate networks. One thing I love about them is the wide range of products from different brands and companies we can choose from. It doesn’t matter the niche we operate, we’ll always get products to market. So the first thing I need to do is get traffic to my website first and I’d continue from there.
Thanks for the comment. I love that there are so many affiliate programs out there with pretty much any product you can imagine.Getting that traffic flowing through your website is very important. I wish you much success!
i am familiar with Fiverr and Click Bank. Fiverr was introduced to me by a friend some time last year. It is a great platform but the process seemed to be slow for me. However, Click Bank never peaked my interest from the on set. This is an informative review and I would like to thank you for it.
You are very welcome, I hope you found some useful information on affiliate programs. Fiverr does seem to be a pretty good program. Thanks for your feedback.
Many thanks to you for sharing such an excellent article with us .I have some ideas about affiliate networks and I’ve been working here for a long time.Here I explain the details and aspects of the products of different brands to the buyers and the buyers are happy to buy the products.I started working here as a marketer.And from here I am learning daily how to be a successful entrepreneur.I think that for those who want to build their own business online and make money online, it is very important that they join Wealthy Affiliate.
Thanks for sharing your experience with Wealthy Affiliate. It sounds like you are getting along pretty well and I wish you continued success!
Hey, I really enjoyed reading your guide online and found it very helpful. This site is terrific! I’m still very new with WA and I’m actually going through the training on affiliate programs and networks now. I was familiar with some of the programs you listed but learned about some new ones as well. Thanks for sharing such useful post.
Your welcome, I’m happy to hear that you are at the affiliate program part of training, it’s get’s a lot more exciting at this point. I’m also glad that you found my article useful. If there is anything you need just give me a shout. I wish you the best!
Hey, I really enjoyed reading your post and found it very helpful. When I first started online marketing, I made many mistakes in regards to advertising. I have some knowledge about these free to join affiliate networks. One thing I love about them is the wide range of products from different brands and companies we can choose from. I hope my website will get enough traffic with the help of wealthy affiliate training.
I’m glad to hear that my article was helpful and I know that you will get plenty of traffic soon enough, continue to follow the training and you will see it works like magic! Here’s to your success!
Thanks for the information, I didn’t know Ebay and Fiverr have affiliate programs.
Yes, you are right, building traffic should be the first priority before applying to some of these affiliate networks. The more traffic, the more sales opportunities. Big companies affiliate networks are more interested in high traffic websites than new websites. If a website can be accepted by CJ, that website is definitely making money out of affiliate commissions.
You are very welcome and I am happy that you found the information useful.Commission Junction is a pretty reputable network indeed. Thanks for visiting and sharing your experience.
Good evening Tracy,
I like specific and concise descriptions like you have provided here. Great job and design.
Want to refer me to a word press hosting site? I am in the market for my newest site, if it’s not too expensive.
Hello Petra! Thank you for the kind words. I would like to suggest you try out Wealthy Affiliate, as your business grows, your website platform is going to need to grow with you and allow for higher traffic websites, and more websites. At Wealthy Affiliate you can run several multi-million dollar websites from ONE platform in SiteRubix. You will not outgrow the platform here and as a Premium member you can host up to 50 websites total for just $49 per month.
You can also check out SiteRubix or WP Engine If you click on the links I have provided, you will find the information you need on wordpress hosting sites.
Hi
This is really helpful. I’ve actually signed up to a couple of the sites for myself.
Well put together …
Thanks
Belinda
Thanks Belinda, I’m happy to help. If you have any questions or need more ideas, I have plenty of affiliate programs in mind. Let me know. Thanks for reading!