The Top Affiliate Programs Today
Making a real income online can be intimidating, especially if you are just considering this. Many people are students, stay at home parents, retirees or just about anyone wanting to increase income are flocking to the Internet to find the top affiliate programs for them.
There are other ways to make money online, but many of them are low-paying, tedious, boring and not worth your valuable time. Here, we will discuss the one that I see advertisements most often and then get into comparing the best affiliate programs that are actually paying out real earned commissions regularly.
Get Paid to Take Surveys Online
Many well-known companies will pay people to review their products and services and take surveys to help them improve their business practices. There are websites that invite people to do this and may charge a member fee so watch for that. Also, these surveys can be very subjective and may require a specifically targeted audience by age, location, profession or income levels. Pay attention to the details before you sign up. Average pay per survey is said to be about $.70 so you will have to do a lot of them to earn any real money.
Data Entry from your Home Computer
While this sounds like a great idea, the truth is you usually have to pay a fee for training and or the use of the websites’ program. You could be asked to pay $2-300 to get started. Some of these training programs are confusing and don’t even tell you everything you need to know, but I can practically guarantee, they will offer you an advanced training course, for a fee of course. So you are in the hole, before you start and then you have to wait to be assigned work from these companies. A lot of people give up before they even have a chance to earn money. If you are still interested in doing this, check a legitimate job site like Indeed or Monster and look for data entry jobs.
Perform Tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk
Companies or people list different types of jobs on this site and ask people to perform tasks such as listening to a recording or comparing text or pictures. It seems simple enough, but it can be trickier than it sounds. Some of the instructions can seem confusing and if you make a couple of mistakes, they will terminate your ability to earn money and it does not pay very much out of the gate anyway. It is tedious, tiring and can be quite boring. But, if you want to check it out: Amazon Mechanical Turk
Post Items on Craigslist for Sale
If you have unneeded or unwanted items like electronics, furniture, appliances or even clothing or collectibles, you can list them for sale in your local area or another area. Including a photo of the item is helpful. This is a very popular site because you can actually find some good deals. You can sell or buy just about anything. If you want to try this, by all means do, but I have to warn you about a couple of things…..
Make sure the buyer knows they have to take and transport the item and you will not deliver it. This is especially important for large items of furniture and appliances. If you are selling out of your area, you may have to ship items at your cost. When dealing in person in your area, stipulate cash only and exact change. You do not want to take out your wallet to make change in front of a stranger. Be cautious about giving your home address. It would be safer to meet the person at say a large, well-lit, public area, near a police or fire department, and do not go alone. Take a friend or family member with you as a witness and extra protection. Meet during the day if at all possible. Don’t advertise on social media where you are going and when. Be smart and be safe.
Any one of these choices in the brief list above could potentially make money. And, I could on about a myriad of other ways to earn a few bucks online, but they are all time consuming and can take a long time to make ANY difference in your income. Definitely, do some research online and see what opportunities are out there. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is and you do not want to get cheated out of money when your goal is to earn some.
Using the Top Affiliate Programs to Earn Monthly Residual Income
Then, how can you make any real money online? One of the most popular and lucrative choices is Affiliate Marketing. Since the 1990’s many companies have developed systems and programs to invite people to join them and advertise and/or sell products and services. Let’s review some of the top affiliate programs and how they work.
What is an affiliate? An affiliate is an associate to a company and works with them to advertise products and services for a fee. An associate signs up with a company that introduces the publisher (provider, agent or producer) of the product or service and agrees to promote those things for sale to others for a percentage of the sales price. This percentage or commission rate can vary quite a bit among all the companies out there. We’ll get to that part shortly.
How do we define Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is the method of earning a percentage of the sale price from promoting other people’s or company’s products. You select an item you like, promote it to other people, and can earn a share of the profit for each sale that you make from your advertising. You need to believe in the product, have knowledge about how it works and compares to the competition and provide reviews and advice to the consumer. Some affiliate companies work with a group of different publishers and offer them to affiliates to select and market their products. Another thing I would like to mention is that you will need to decide on a budget for advertising. It will take a little money to do this. There are free advertising sites, but you will probably not find the kind of customer you want to attract.
The advantage with these companies is that most of them have built-in programs, offering training and websites and support. Some even offer free trial periods (for the customers you bring to them.) Most ask for a monthly fee for premium services that offer extras to the affiliate. Each company has its own guidelines and advice. You need to look at the ones that interest you and explore them further. Below is an overview and basic information on the top affiliate programs that are popular today. I am listing them in alphabetical order. But, if you want to jump to the comparison chart at the bottom, just go ahead and scroll down.
Affilorama
Affilorama is the first of the Top Affiliate Programs we are presenting for your consideration.
Learn to make money online as an affiliate. Promote other people’s products and make money for yourself. We show you how! Create your free Affilorama membership and start today!
Affilorama, a division of DoubleDot Media, was founded in 2006 by Mark Ling and Co-founder and CEO Simon Slade. Mark’s 8 years experience as an affiliate, product owner, and affiliate program manager drove him to create Affilorama’s step-by-step video lessons. It has grown to a membership of over 300,000 from all over the world, and offers free introductory video lessons and comprehensive training and tool packages. You can join for free and take advantage of the $1 – 30 day trial.
(http://affiliorama.com)
Here are some quick facts about their affiliate program:
- ClickBank Gravity of 46.06.*
- 50 % commission on all products, including lifetime membership renewals.
- Affiliates average $218.41 per sale.*
- Average rebill rate of $449.02, and our rebilling products.
- We track visitors for 60 days.
*Correct at time of publishing.
Amazon and Ebay Affiliate Links
These two giants of the Internet definitely make the Top Affiliate Program List. They allow you to apply for their affiliate programs and become approved to represent them. Because they have such a wide variety of offerings, you can select a niche, such as Books, Toys, Clothing, Sporting Goods, Fitness, and Pet Supplies or just about anything they have to offer. They may show a sampling of these items on your website in an ad to attract customers. If approved, they will assign you a link that you can put on your website. Whenever a customer uses your link to buy from their website you are eligible for a commission. Amazon does not approve sales from friends and family. However, so if they buy with your link, Amazon may not pay you a commission for those purchases – they have even been known to terminate affiliates for this. eBay does not stipulate this. It may take a few days to get approved and set up, but they are free to join and this is a great way to get started earning money online. If your website gets a lot of traffic you can make decent commissions. They provide lots of helpful hints and support also. Make sure you have a great website that ranks well in Google to get the maximum exposure. Walmart and Target also have affiliate networks and they may be worth checking also.
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
- Earn up to 10% advertising fees with a trusted e-commerce leader
- Join Now for Free
- Learn More » Earn up to 8.5%* on Home, Kitchen, Garden & Grocery
EBAY
What I get paid? When I get paid? How I get paid?
Toys 50%* Electronics 55%* Fashion 65%*
You’ll earn a percentage of eBay’s revenue whenever you send someone to eBay and they make a purchase within 24-hours even if auctions take up to 10 days to end.
Partners (affiliates) can earn 40% to 80% of eBay profits. The percentage is based on the category of the item purchased – such as electronics or fashion. You can earn extra cash for shoppers who haven’t made a purchase with eBay in the last 12 months.
Not selling in the U.S. and want to see how much you can earn? Go to eBEbay and check out their rate card.
Chris Farrell Membership
(chrisfarrellmembership.com)
Also making the top affiliate program list is Chris Farrell Membership. Chris, a former DJ in London, now lives in Beverly Hills, CA and built and created this site in 2008 for people who wanted to have an online business. It provides all the things you need to make your online business a success. The products on the site show you exactly how to use the same techniques Chris used in order to make his own success.
You can join for free and the small monthly membership fee gives you all the training, tools and support. With a membership of more than 23,000 people and new people signing up every day, this is a great opportunity. It comes with a 30-day money back guarantee and you choose if you want a monthly or yearly membership package.
How much is the does it cost?
There is a $1 one week trial and then its $37 per month if you decide to stay. Other fees will include $10 a year for each registered domain, an autoresponder to build your list at $20 per month, and $5 each month for hosting if you’re not a yearly member.
For more detailed information on this business opportunity, check out our Chris Farrell Membership Review.
ClickBank University
(clickbankuniversity.com)
ClickBank is another top affiliate program that sells what they refer to as lifestyle items from dedicated retailers and producers. Products provide inspiration and guidance on topics ranging from pet training, popular cooking recipes to fitness or even surfing. Improving customer’s lives all around the world is the goal. As a ClickBank Affiliate Marketer, you have a chance to make that happen every day and earn commissions for yourself.
Joining is free and easy and reasonable monthly fees make it worth it for you to go through the training, support and become part of our family and earn commissions as high as 75%.
Many affiliates use Click Bank to find products to sell on their own websites. This is how they first began. Clickbank University evolved from a mere (yet, quite successful) marketplace and now they offer their education services, training and hosting platform for those wishing to take it a step further.
Review the earnings sample shown below.
Commission Junction or CJ by Conversant
Commission Junction is a top affiliate program, now known as CJ by Conversant. This affiliate network has a huge source of publishers that they offer to affiliates to select products from the market and sell on their websites. It is free to join CJ and they have an outstanding reputation for success, training and support. You can earn income with CJ by advertising for world recognized brands using traffic from your website. Here is a sample performance summary for CJ.
CJ has been around for decades. You’ll need a decent website with some already established visitor traffic. Each of the merchants that use the CJ network to locate affiliates will generally check out your website before approving you to display their advertisements. Many of the merchants can be quite discerning during your application process and some don’t offer much in the commission realm. They have a myriad of products and services available, though. Experienced online marketers are doing well with CJ, but I definitely wouldn’t call it an affiliate network for anyone new to Internet marketing.
(http://cj.com)
Well, of course, we saved the best for last….
Wealthy Affiliate (wealthyaffiliate.com)
Wealthy Affiliate is the #1 top affiliate program on the internet. You can join for free and remain a free member with all the lessons and two free websites. The tools, training and support are unparalleled in this online industry. Take advantage of the free trial to look around and see all that is provided. Talk to community members and ask questions. You will be invited to join at the Premium level which is $49 a month and it is well worth it. You get more advantages, unlimited websites and best of all the community support 24 hours a day. People from all over the world, from all social and economic groups and of all ages are members. They have an unbounded enthusiasm and desire to help each other succeed. Many have extensive knowledge that they willingly share with each other and if you have a question, I guarantee someone has an answer.
The Company
Wealthy Affiliate is in its 10th year and operates under Niche Marketing Inc. on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Although not accredited by the BBB, Niche Marketing Inc does have passable rating with the company: B+.
In ten years of operations, the Better Business Bureau reports only 6 complaints against the company with over half a million active members. All incidents have been resolved. That’s why the less than a perfect “A” rating, but Wealthy Affiliate’s responses and resolutions to these issues were found to be honest and fair and timely.
The Founders
The President Carson Lim and VP Kyle Loudoun are not publicity seekers, so little has been written about them. Both founders are young and seem to have jumped perfectly into the business world with Wealthy Affiliate, ready to go. We are so glad they did.
It’s good to see online ventures combine with the regular business world with management and leadership. Having smart, successful, experienced business people heading your company is a recipe for success.
Carson and Kyle built this program to make it easy for other’s to start their own online home businesses. They wanted to make it as accessible and easy for people to do this and help themselves and then help others. And this works beautifully. The community members are constantly sharing information and talking to each other and offering advice, tips and shortcuts to anyone who needs them. They become friends and care about each other and you will feel honored to be part of that.
Wealthy Affiliate members have creative control of their own destiny, finding their own niche markets and designing their own programs and websites from the huge selection of models provided. With Tools like Word Press, Plug-Ins, SEO and Jaaxy the possibilities are endless. Step by step tutorials and the Affiliate Bootcamp will provide you with lessons you can refer to again and again if you need to. There is also a great resource at the top of the page where you can type in anything, like Set up Google or any subject and it will produce a list of lessons, advice and tutorials to help you find what you need. Wealthy Affiliate’s technical support is outstanding, answering questions and solving issues for members in record time and so nicely. You will never feel alone with any question or issue you need help solving.
You have your own platform to blog, advertise or sell special products and services, reach out to others and make your business work for you. This is all about you and what you want to do. No one tells you what to do, just how to do it. Many other affiliate sites have rules and guidelines that you have to follow and can stall your creativity. It’s the human factor at work here. We all support each other and each single person who achieves their goals creates a win for all of us.
The best part of the training is the step by step tutorials and lessons that show you exactly what to do and how to do it. They have periodic Webinars on a variety of subjects that can provide extra guidance and tips for improving your process. Many members create tutorials to share with the members on their blogs. You will be able to create a wonderful website that you will be proud of. Working with Word Press to blog and add posts and pages to your site is very easy to learn and it comes with lots of extra plug-ins for anything you might need. Wealthy Affiliate walks you through everything and if you still need help, there is plenty of that from the lessons but especially from the community members who gladly lend a hand or an idea.
Stacked up against the competition, Wealthy Affiliate always comes out number 1 among the top affiliate programs. It surpasses all the others with the comprehensive, currently updated and supportive training. Other affiliate networks may have some of the same programs, but many are outdated and the training sessions are not as easy to use. Also, the Wealthy Affiliate training arsenal is updated and added to with videos and other tutorials almost daily. We have added to their bank of tutorials ourselves.
More people are joining every day. Wouldn’t you like to be one of the newest members of Wealthy Affiliate? I am going to put the Free Trial Link here again, so you can get started today. Even absolutely free members can earn a monthly residual income. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain. If you would like more details on this absolutely fantastic business opportunity, check out our Wealthy Affiliate Review. Check out what other members have to say: Wealthy Affiliate Testimonials.
Now that we have reviewed these Top Affiliate Programs here is a quick review at a glance.
We hoped we provided some guidance and insight into the online world of Affiliate Marketing. There are many companies out there who want your business and money. Take the time to do some research and look at all the factors involved and read reviews and get all the information you can. Then come back to Wealthy Affiliate – The Top Affiliate Programs clear choice and join us on the inside.
