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The Best Affiliate Programs –
Which Ones Are Worthwhile for You?
10 min read | 10th February 2023
Key Points: Affiliate marketing is an important tool for content creators to generate revenue on their way to achieve financial freedom. Those who know me, know that I am very skeptical about many marketing techniques. However, this is not because of the tools themselves, but because of how they are (often) used. With affiliate marketing, it’s like with any other marketing tool: It can be used ethically, or manipulatively. This post, however, is not about when it is ethical and when it is not – but there will be a post on this sooner or later. Here you will find an overview of different affiliate programs from various industries, where perhaps you will find a suitable one, with which you can generate additional income – in accordance with your values.
What Are Affiliate Programs or What is Affiliate Marketing?
“Affiliate” means “partner.” In affiliate marketing, you are the marketing partner of a company (the “merchant”). Under an affiliate program, you promote that company’s products on your website or social media channel, and under certain conditions, you receive a commission if the company gains a new customer or closes a sale through your referral.
Affiliate programs differ from company to company, and not just in the amount of commission you can earn. For example, there are also differences in terms of the requirements that you or your website or social media channel must meet in order to be accepted into the affiliate program. Unfortunately, not every company clearly communicates which criteria you have to meet in terms of content volume, topic focus and traffic in order to be accepted into the affiliate program after your application. In any case, the more high-quality content you have published that fits thematically with the respective affiliate program, the better your chances of being accepted.
How Do Affiliate Programs Work?
The principle of affiliate marketing is based on a win-win partnership for you as the operator of a website or social media channel and the respective company. By producing content in which the products of your partner company can be thematically integrated, you advertise the company to your readers or followers and thereby increase the advertising reach of this company. If your readers or followers then buy a product via your so-called affiliate link or perform a certain action on the company’s website, you will be rewarded with a commission, because without your content this would not have happened.
In order for this system to work, cookies are used (with a few exceptions, such as on Booking.com), which allow the company to identify from which website a user was referred to the company. To be on the safe side legally, you have therefore also to integrate a cookie opt-in system on your website that meets the requirements of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if you are based in Europe or are addressing people within the EU with your content. In addition, you have to inform your visitors about the respective cookies in your privacy policy.
If your referral fulfills all the criteria that the company sets as a condition for a commission payment, you will be compensated with a commission. Depending on the affiliate program, you must first generate a certain amount of commission before it is transferred to your account or PayPal account (so-called payout threshold).
What Are the Commission Models for Affiliate Programs?
Depending on the affiliate program, the commission model may be a different one, because there are several variations to choose from. For example, there are:
- Cost per Click (CPC)
- Cost per Lead (CPL)
- Cost per Sale (CPS)
- Lifetime Commission
The most common of these is the Cost per Sale model, but it’s worth knowing how the other models work as well, so here’s a brief overview:
Cost per Click (CPC)
Cost per Click is a model where you, as a content creator or publisher, receive a commission for every click on an affiliate link on your website or social media channel. Here, the risk for the advertising company is relatively high, because they have to pay you even if they don’t make a sale from your referral.
Cost per Lead (CPL)
With the Cost per Lead model, after clicking on your affiliate link, a user still has to perform a certain action on the merchant’s website. What exactly this is depends on the affiliate program, but mostly it involves a user registering (for a free account) or submitting their data to the company in some other way.
Cost per Sale (CPS)
Cost per Sale means that as an affiliate you only receive a commission if your partner company also generates a sale via your link. Many affiliate programs follow this model.
Lifetime Commission
With some companies, you receive a monthly commission for as long as the customer generates sales for the business. There are several variations of this so-called lifetime model.
Find the Affiliate Program that Suits You Best
Which affiliate program is right for you depends not only on the commission model and the amount of the commission, but also on the topic of your content. After all, it only makes sense to promote products for which you also have an audience or followers. Here you will find a small selection of the large number of affiliate programs that are offered. You can use the filter function to display affiliate programs for specific topics.
If you are looking for even more affiliate programs, then take a look at the large affiliate networks through which brands and companies organize their programs. Well-known portals available in multiple countries are for example AWIN, impact, TradeDoubler, TradeTracker, Commission Junction or Belboon. There is also Digistore24, an online marketplace that runs its own affiliate program. However, this is only a small selection out of all the available affiliate networks. If you are based in Germany or have a German audience, please check out our German version of this post about affiliate marketing programs. Here, you’ll find additional networks and programs that are only available for Germany.
Adobe
Adobe’s affiliate program gives you the opportunity to promote professional tools for designers (Adobe Creative Cloud), stock photos and videos (Adobe Stock), and their Document Cloud for a streamlined document workflow. Adobe is the leader in this space and practically unrivaled.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS)
Commission rate: Creative Cloud and Document Cloud: 8.33% on annual subscription with pre-paid payment or 85% on first month with monthly payment; Adobe Stock: $72 on monthly subscription and annual subscription with monthly payment, 8.33% on single licenses, and 85% on 3 standard assets per month with monthly payment on first month. Commission may vary depending on your country. Check Adobe’s program for your specific country for applicable commission rates.
Participation fees: No.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? Not specified.
Cookie lifetime: 30 days.
Admission requirements: What criteria your website or social media account must meet to be accepted in the program is, unfortunately, not mentioned.
All Accor – Accor Hotels
Accor unites 22 hotel brands under one roof – from the affordable Ibis Budget to the luxurious Fairmont. With the All Accor Affilate program you can promote all of them on your website.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS)
Commission rate: 1.5% to 10%.
Participation fees: No.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? No.
Cookie lifetime: 30 days.
Admission requirements: Unfortunately, the exact criteria that your website or social media account must meet in terms of content volume or traffic volume is not explained.
Amazon Associates
Amazon has most likely the best known affiliate program. Due to the abundance of different products that you can promote via Amazon, this affiliate program is suitable for (almost) every content creator. No matter if the focus of your website is on supplements for athletes, if you review books on a special topic or if your specialty is home entertainment, on Amazon you will find products for most areas of life.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS)
Commission rate: 1% to 20% per qualifying sale, depending on various criteria. Check out Amazon’s affiliate program for your specific country to see if rates are different.
Participation fees: No.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: 3 sales in the first 180 days after registration. If you do not generate any sales for 3 years after final admission to the program, your affiliate account will be set to “inactive”.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? I haven’t found a valid statement on whether you also have to have an Amazon customer account to participate in the affiliate program, but everything points to “no”. However, there is probably hardly anyone these days who doesn’t have an Amazon customer account anyway.
Cookie lifetime: 24 hours to 89 days.
If a user clicks on an Amazon affiliate link on your website, they must add a product to their shopping cart within 24 hours so that it is assigned to your affiliate ID. However, you will only receive a commission if they complete the purchase within 89 days. You can find more detailed information in Amazon’s program guidelines.
Admission requirements: Signing up for the program itself is straightforward and you can start adding your links relatively quickly after signing up. However, you must generate at least three qualifying sales within the first 180 days of enrollment. If you fail to do so, you will be automatically unsubscribed from the affiliate program after this period. If you were able to refer at least three sales to Amazon, the program will then check whether the websites, apps, and social media profiles that you entered during registration meet Amazon’s quality standards. According to its own information, Amazon places value here on “strong original content” and “as a rule of thumb” you should have at least 10 posts that should be publicly accessible and no older than 60 days.
Specifics: Amazon has a separate portal for each country in which the affiliate program is offered. If your website is only aimed at an audience within one specific country, this is probably not relevant for you. However, once you run an English-language website and target an international audience, this could become important for you.
Roughly it works like this: You sign up with the American “mother” of all Amazon affiliate programs, on Amazon Affiliate Central. This is your “master account,” through which you link all other Amazon affiliate programs (for which you must sign up separately). You then embed product links through your US account. If you follow the instructions provided by Amazon exactly, visitors to your website will then be redirected to the respective product on their local Amazon website and you will receive a commission on a qualified purchase here as well.
Booking.com
Booking.com is by now one of the most well-known online travel portals. To keep it that way, Booking.com also advertises through an affiliate program. Here, content creators with a focus on travel are mainly addressed, but even if you run a general lifestyle blog, in which you occasionally address the topic of travel, this affiliate program can be attractive for you.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS)
Commission rate: For a qualifying sale you will receive between 25% and 40% of the commission Booking.com receives from the respective accommodation for a booking. Booking.com provides detailed information here.
Participation fees: No.
Minimum revenue / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? No.
Cookie lifetime: On-Session:
Booking.com does not use cookies, only your affiliate ID, which is passed with the affiliate link. This means that a user must complete the booking directly in the session they started through your link. If the user leaves the Booking.com website and completes their booking later, your affiliate ID will be lost and the booking can no longer be attributed to you.
Admission requirements: Booking.com advertises that admission to the affiliate program is confirmed immediately. However, after the sign-up you still have to go through a so-called “partner screening”, in which your application is checked again.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a well-known and popular platform for customer relationship management (CRM), which combines many different features under one hood and thereby significantly simplifies workflows. HubSpot offers marketing tools, sales tools, customer service software, a business process optimization tool, and even a website content management system (CMS). You can earn attractive commissions through HubSpot’s affiliate program.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS)
Commission rate: 15% monthly (up to 1 year) or 100% one-time per sale.
Participation fees: No.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? No.
Cookie lifetime: 90 days.
Admission requirements: After the sign-up process, HubSpot will review your application for criteria, but these are not further explained in the Marketing Affiliate Program Agreement and HubSpot Affiliate Program Policies.
IONOS
IONOS is a hosting provider based in Germany, but now offers its services internationally. IONOS offers scalable solutions for all needs: From simple modular solutions to shared hosting for WordPress websites and self-programmed projects, to your own server on which complex applications can be hosted. You will also find special offers for agencies in their portfolio. You can refer these products via the IONOS affiliate program.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS)
Commission rate: Unfortunately, IONOS does not provide any information about this at the moment.
Participation fees: No.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? No.
Cookie lifetime: 30 days.
Admission requirements: Unfortunately, there is no mention of what criteria your website must meet in terms of content volume and traffic.
Kinsta
Anyone who creates or maintains a WordPress website will sooner or later stumble upon Kinsta‘s informative blog, where you can find solutions to many WordPress problems. However, this blog is not the main focus of Kinsta, but a marketing tool to acquire customers for the actual product: WordPress hosting. You can promote this product through Kinsta’s affiliate program.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS) and Lifetime.
Commission rate: $50 to $500 for each customer registration plus 10% monthly lifetime commission.
Participation fees: No.
Minimum revenue / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? No.
Cookie lifetime: 60 days.
Admission requirements: Among other things, your website must fit the industry or have “a significant amount of relevant, high-quality content.” And: A website is a requirement. Social media profiles are not accepted. For more information, click here.
Kraken
Kraken is a cryptocurrency exchange where you can trade more than 100 other coins besides Bitcoin – and it’s very straightforward. Click here to go to the affiliate program.
Commission model: Lifetime 20% of the trading fees (up to max. total $ 1.000,-) per referred customer.
Commission rate: 20% of all trading fees up to a max total of $1,000 per referred customer.
Participation fees: Not specified.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? Not specified.
Cookie lifetime: 180 days.
Admission requirements:
- Social media accounts must have at least 5,000 followers or subscribers. The focus of your channel does not have to be on finance or cryptocurrencies.
- For websites and apps, however, the thematic focus must definitely be on finance or crypto. There is no minimum traffic volume requirement.
- Facebook groups or pages must have at least 5,000 members or followers and be focused on finance or crypto.
Mindvalley
Mindvalley is a personal development platform that offers many high-quality online courses from many different areas of life. Most of these courses are only available within a membership. Mindvalley sets the bar very high for its own products and is therefore also a bit more selective about affiliate partners. But now to the details of the Mindvalley affiliate program.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS)
Commission rate: 20% to 30%.
Participation fees: No.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? There is no clear statement on this, however it makes little sense to promote a course that you yourself have not gone through, because without this personal experience you cannot say anything substantial about it that could generate a click or sale for a relatively expensive product.
Cookie lifetime: 30 days.
Admission requirements: As mentioned earlier, the bar is high at Mindvalley. The three main criteria you have to meet are
- at least 200,000 fans or followers,
- an audience that interacts very frequently with your content, and
- constant traffic.
What other requirements Mindvalley sets is not mentioned.
Scalable Capital
Scalable Capital makes it easy to invest in stocks and ETFs. Scalable Capital offers free ETF savings plans starting from € 1,- savings rate and also the order fees for stock trades are kept very customer-friendly. Currently, Scalable Capital as well as its affiliate program are availabel in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Click here to go to Scalable Capital’s affiliate program.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS) and Cost per Lead (CPL).
Commission rate: € 3,- to € 150,- per lead or sale.
Participation fees: Not specified.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? Not specified.
Cookie lifetime: 30 days.
Admission requirements: Unfortunately, no exact information is given about which requirements your website has to fulfill. You can find the conditions of participation here.
Semrush
As one of the leading SEO software companies, Semrush enjoys great popularity. You can promote the search engine optimization and competitive analysis tools on your website or social media account through Semrush’s affiliate program, BeRush.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS) and Cost per Lead (CPL).
Commission rate: $0.01 to $200 per lead or sale.
Participation fees: Not specified.
Minimum revenue / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? No, but it is encouraged.
Cookie lifetime: 120 days.
Admission requirements:
- At least 1,000 followers on your social media account or 1,000 visitors to your website per month.
- Your content must have a focus on digital marketing, SEO, content marketing, competitive analysis, PPC and/or social media marketing.
- You must publish content regularly – 1 to 3x per week.
Specifics: ou already get a small commission when a lead signs up for a free Semrush account through your website ($0.01). If your lead then decides to sign up for a free trial, you will receive $10, and if your lead purchases a paid plan, you will receive $200.
Shutterstock
Shutterstock is one of the leading stock photo and video platforms through which advertising agencies and content creators can acquire the materials they need for their digital and print media. Music and sound effects are now also available on Shutterstock. With Shutterstock’s affiliate program, you can earn attractive commissions.
Commission model: Cost per Sale (CPS)
Commission rate: 20% (max $300 per sale).
Participation fees: No.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? Nein.
Cookie lifetime: 30 days.
Admission requirements: What criteria your website or social media accounts must meet to make it through the review in regard of content volume and traffic is unfortunately not mentioned.
XOVI
XOVI is a comprehensive SEO suite made in Germany. If you deal with search engine optimization in your content, this affiliate program is an interesting option for you.
Commission model: Lifetime.
Commission rate: 20% monthly per referred customer (Lifetime).
Participation fees: No.
Minimum turnover / minimum sales: Not specified.
Do you have to be a customer yourself? Not specified.
Cookie lifetime: I could not find any information about this at XOVI itself. According to HubSpot, the cookie lifetime is 60 days.
Admission requirements: What criteria your website or social media accounts must meet in regard to content volume and traffic to make it through the review is unfortunately not mentioned further.
Is Our Information Still up to Date?
There are always changes and updates to affiliate programs, or some are discontinued completely. If you have noticed that any of our information is no longer accurate, we would greatly appreciate it if you would let us know at hello@gravity-inspires.com. Thank you very much!
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