The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners

You have been doing research in affiliate marketing and realize the potential that it can bring to you and your family, so you decide to give it a shot. In this case you will need to find one, or preferably multiple affiliate program’s that offer good commissions for each sale you deliver. Even if you are a beginner, don’t worry we will help you find the best affiliate marketing program’s for beginners.

Before we do that let’s learn more about affiliate marketing program’s and what constitutes the best for beginners.

What Are Affiliate Marketing Programs?


The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners

Affiliate marketing program’s are a way for companies to sell its products and services by signing up people or “affiliates” to market or advertise that company’s products and/or services for a paid commission. So, in other words, when a customer that you refer online purchases a product from the program’s website, you make money.

To be very clear, let’s use Amazon as an example. They offer and affiliate marketing program known as the Amazon Associates program. Let’s say I have a website where I review a product sold on Amazon, say a food processor or kindle reader, and it costs about $100. On my review, page I will have a link that takes people to Amazon and every time that person purchases that product from my link, I make a commission of somewhere between $4 to about $8 per sale. Depending on my monthly volume of sales.

What’s really cool about this is that Amazon provides the product, the shipping, customer service and even the link and all the tracking that goes with it. All I have to do is drive traffic to my website. This is typical of other affiliate program’s as well. Some even provide training as well.


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The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners

How To Join an Affiliate Marketing Program?


Signing up for an affiliate marketing program should be very easy to do even for a beginner. For most cases, you will need to create a website with at least some content on it. This should not be a hindrance because building a website is not only necessary to be a successful affiliate marketer, but they are very simple to build as well. To learn a step by step approach to on how to build a website to make money go here. No worries, they are free to build and you can learn exactly how step by step.

Signing up at the point usually involves filling out a simple form and then entering your website URL given to you when you follow the above mentioned training. Once the sign up process is completed and you get approved, the company will send you your very own affiliate link which you then place on your website to start earning commissions.

What is really exciting about this process, is that there are a number of things you can do to your website that will lead potential buyers to your affiliate links which, of course, increase the amount of potential commissions you can make. Again, this should not be overwhelming. Take a look around this website for many easy ideas to get more eyeballs and ultimately more sales from your site.

Now that we have covered some basics, let discuss which affiliate marketing program’s you should join as a beginner.

The 3 Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners to Join


In this section, we will provide the top 3 recommended affiliate marketing program’s specifically for beginners. As you develop your affiliate marketing skills you will become more prepared to venture into other program’s and also be familiar with what to look for.

The list below is recommended based on a set of criteria we used to evaluate the quality of the affiliate program and what we ourselves look for in a good affiliate marketing program.

  • Quality of products
  • commission levels
  • Payout frequency and consistency
  • Affiliate support
  • Training

If there is an affiliate program that is not listed as our top 3 choices, please let us know and we can certainly evaluate it for you and even provide a review. Simply contact us or leave a comment below this post.

Amazon Affiliate Program

The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs for Beginners

The Amazon Affiliate program is known as Amazon Associates. It is very common for beginners to start with Amazon for several good reasons:

Pros

  • Authority and Trust – Generally people trust Amazon and if they are led to the Amazon website after reviewing a product, they are usually not worried about making a purchase from a trusted source.
  • Massive product line – Amazon has a very large product line with many different categories associated with them. This makes it really easy to pick a good solid niche.
  • Amazon’s Best Sellers List – The Amazon best-sellers list makes it real easy for beginners to choose a niche and products within that niche to promote. Being on the best-sellers list means it is selling and people therefore will be searching for information on these products.
  • Great team support – The Amazon Associates program is there to help. They have a support ticket system along with a Facebook Group and YouTube channel.
  • Training – They do have a small training team, that gives you general training, but it is not too specific. You will have to find good training from other sources.

Cons

  • Lower Commission rates – The Amazon Affiliate Program only offers a 1 to 10 percent commission rate depending on your sales volume. This is a fairly low commission rate, however, the shear volume of products may compensate for this particular con.
  • They only offer a 24-hour cookie – Meaning that if anyone goes to the Amazon site through your affiliate link and purchases a product within that 24 hours period you will get the sale. Other program’s offer larger cookie length of time.
  • If you make no sales within a 90-day period, they close your affiliate account and make you sign up again.

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The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners

This is somewhat annoying, but if you don’t make a sale within that 90 day time frame you have to sign up again, which means your affiliate links change. So, if you have many articles with your old link, you will have to go back and change them to your new one.

Overall the Amazon affiliate program known as Amazon Associates is a great affiliate program to start with. In fact, it is one of the top ways to choose a niche market to get into and is a great way to spring board into good keyword research.

Going through our criteria above,

  • Product line: the product line on the Amazon website is so vast and includes many high quality brand names that people are familiar with and have seen in other stores. Typically, for Amazon products, potential buyers are searching for a particular brand or a specific item This makes it very easy to determine what keyword phrases to use, since brand name familiarity comes into play.
  • Commission levels: As mentioned above, Amazon’s commission levels range from 1% to 10% depending on your sales volume.
  • Payout frequency and consistency: Amazon pay’s monthly and will typically either send you a check or participate in ACH transfers directly to your bank.
  • Affiliate Support: Amazon does provide great affiliate support and is easy to contact and get answers from
  • Training: As mentioned before, Amazon does offer a small amount of training, but it is very generalized. You will be better off finding the best affiliate marketing training with by The #1 recommendation below:

Clickbank Affiliate Program

The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs for Beginners

The Clickbank Affiliate Program is really more of an affiliate marketplace that offers a large variety of products across multiple niches. Like the Amazon Associates program, Clickbank is a great place to choose a lucrative niche to associate yourself as an affiliate marketer.

Unlike Amazon, however, Clickbank specializes in providing mostly digital products, which typically offer a much higher commission rate. Some even up to u. So, the earning potential is usually much higher. Clickbank is now starting to offer more physical products as well, so keep your eyes out on these opportunities.

Besides the higher commission rates, another thing they have going for them is that many people who use Clickbank to sell products and services will provide you with a review copy if you ask for them. In order to do this, they will typically require you to have your own website within that particular niche, but it is a good idea to use a product so that you can provide an accurate review.

Another advantage of using Clickbank is that it is very easy to sign up for and get approved. You do not normally have to have a website, unless you are asking for a free review copy of a product.

One work of caution for the beginner using Clickbank is you need to be careful when selecting a product to promote inside of their platform. Mainly because some products do not have the best reputations in the world. Fortunately, Clickbank does have a decent rating system built in that allows you to see which products are the most popular and you can also see their refund rates.

To get a great understanding of the Clickbank Affiliate program you can read my complete Clickbank Affiliate Review here.

Wealthy Affiliate

the best affiliate marketing programs for beginners

Wealthy Affiliate is way more than just an affiliate marketing program. It is a training site that teaches you how to become a successful affiliate marketer so that you can run your very own affiliate marketing website. It does not depend on your skill level, you can be a complete beginner or a certified expert.

Their training covers it all. From the very basics of creating your first niche website to way more advanced strategies that allow you to use both free advertising strategies to paid strategies and social media marketing.

Earlier we discussed cookie duration for some other affiliate marketing program’s and you saw 24 hours to 3-day cookie duration. One great thing about Wealthy Affiliate is that you get a lifetime cookie duration. This means that if you send a potential prospect over to the Wealthy Affiliate platform, they are tied to your tracking cookie link from that point forward. So, if they join Wealthy Affiliate even as far as 7 or 8 months later, and as long as they haven’t cleared their cookies, you will still get the sale.

The most impressive part of Wealthy Affiliate is their training program. It is the most comprehensive affiliate marketing training on the planet. They also have a huge track record and tens of thousands of members with hundreds of success stories. They have been in business since 2005, so they have the expertise and experience to teach YOU how to earn an awesome income online.

On top of their training they also offer a plethora of tools and resources that will help you run a full time affiliate marketing business. Whether you want to sell Amazon products, Clickbank products or any other affiliate program for that matter. Not to mention their own internal affiliate program.

Some tools include:

  • Work processor known as site content
  • Image look up utility with access to thousands of royalty free images
  • An awesome keyword research tool
  • premium managed WordPress hosting
  • Much, much more

So, even if you are new and want to find one of the best affiliate marketing program’s for beginners, whether that be in the “make money niche” or any other niche, then Wealthy Affiliate is the best place to start.

The best part is that Wealthy Affiliate offers a free membership option that allows you to go through their ten lesson online certification course and try out all of their tools without even having to use a credit card. Completely free. By the way, this isn’t a free trial, there is actually a completely free membership that you can use for life if you want. Of course, the also offer a premium membership with loads of value.

Conclusion

I understand that being a beginner in affiliate marketing can be daunting and you can be easily overwhelmed and It can be challenging to choose the best affiliate marketing program for beginners. By taking the time to look over what is available above is a great way to start and learn about the opportunities that are available and how much income you can potentially earn as an affiliate marketer. Plus, affiliate marketing is different that MLM Marketing. It is not like companies such as you would see on my Usana MLM review. It is a different way to earn an online income, and much easier as well.

If you own your own website and are struggling to get visitors to your site or are simply finding yourself confused with all the shiny objects on the internet, take a look at my top recommended resource.

Once inside of this platform, you will find the step by step platform that will literally take you by the hand to help you reach your affiliate marketing goals. There is a community of people who are willing to help you out anytime you need help and me as your one on one personal affiliate marketing coach.

I can show you how cool earning an income online through affiliate marketing really is. Take care and see you on the inside of this awesome community.

13 thoughts on “The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners”

  1. I am now a Walmart Affiliate thanks to reading your post. I signed up through from your website. I have made a few sales as an Amazon Affiliate. I am also am a CJ Affiliate. My posts have been indexed a few times but I do not seem to make sales often. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Is being an affiliate the only way to make money with my website? I started Wealthy Affiliate Program a few months ago. I really want to be a success too. Any suggestions are welcomed.

    Reply
    • Hi Cathy, thanks for stopping by. Yes, there are other ways of monetizing your website. For example you could use Google Adsence and have them place ads on your site. My recommendation is to keep plugging away at writing good content. A few months may not be quite enough time to rank enough pages to generate a large number of sales. It is worth working your site for the long run. I have heared sites with over 100 posts start to generate huge numbers of sales all of a sudden like. This is because we typically follow the low hanging fruit method and go after long tailed keywords with lower competition. This requires more content, but will be well worth the effort. This is how sustainable businesses are run and a full time income is generated for the long hall. 

      Reply
  2. I have been thinking about Affiliate Marketing for a while now. I have researched it a bit, so I do understand what a cookie is. I mean other than chocolate chip.

    I thought about Amazon, but you say they only have a one-day cookie. That’s horrible. I like the commission payout for WA. I may check this program out. It sounds like they are very forgiving of newbies. I don’t know much.

    It is a bit scary. Do you think it would be good for me?

    Reply
    • Hi Laura, thanks for the feedback. Yes, to answer your question, the Wealthy Affiliate Program would be a good fit for a newbie such as yourself. Plus, there is really nothing to be scared about since they have such a forgiving and helpful community of experienced affiliate marketers that are more than will to help you out. Plus, you would have me as your personal coach to guide you along the way. I love the fact that there is absolutely no risk, since you can join for free, even without a credit card.

      Reply
  3. Hi Ralph,
    Thanks for your easy to follow intro to affiliate programs. I like it how you’ve kept it simple and described those 4 affiliate programs in detail. I didn’t want to get lost on a sea of possibilities and having the info on those 4 for starters is really helpful.
    Also the criteria you listed is really helpful. I hadn’t thought of it like that before, often we only focus on the commission. But you’re quite right, these are very important: Quality of products, Commission levels, Payout frequency and consistency, Affiliate support and Training.
    I know with Wealthy Affiliate you can get all of these, it is really a remarkable training platform, community and affiliate program.
    Thanks Ralph, wishing you success online. Regards John

    Reply
  4. What’s cool is that I’m also writing a blog post about affiliate marketing, so I’m delighted to read your content about your views of the various programs existing out there.

    Yes, I do agree with Clickbank in which every affiliate marketer should be careful when choosing merchants to promote because there are some products that are scam or non-existent. Unlike Rakuten or ShareASale, for example. These programs make sure the programs and/or services are legit to keep the members safe.

    Reply
    • Hi Mecyll, thanks for the feedback. I agree with you regarding Rakuten and ShareASale. They are good programs as well, just not sure about being one of the best affiliate marketing programs for beginners though, because it takes more to get approved by them. 

      Reply
  5. This article is useful to keep open as I peruse the options I am seeing on websites and through the power of the internet, I think that it is easier than ever to get something that is really going to be effective. This is exactly the information that I was looking for information about the best affiliate marketing. So I’m happy that you decided to write about “The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners” Topic and share it with people. It’s very useful and can definitely be used as a great source for everyone who is interested in this topic.

    I really enjoyed your article – it is very helpful. Have a nice day.

    Reply
  6. You have offered a very good service for those of us who are just starting out.  It is hard to know how to get started, or which company to choose, as there are so many of them.  By giving us a positive direction,  you are providing us with a much-needed service.

    I watched your video, and find the idea of getting two free websites quite enticing.  I do plan to take your little course, because it looks like just what I have been looking for.  Thank you for giving us this introductory course to help us get started.  I’m looking forward to the lessons.

    Reply
    • Thank you Fran for your feedback and I am glad you enjoyed the video. Yes, the two free websites you get are great and also a great way to go through the training with. This way you can follow step by step and build out one of your websites as you go through the training. Next thing you know, you have a working website that qualifies you to get approved for the various affiliate marketing programs. 

      Reply
  7. I agree with this list. Amazon’s program has been around forever and it’s a good program for newbies to use if they want to get their feet wet. I’m also a fan of Walmart’s program. ClickBank and WA are good ones too. I have personal experience with all four, and I like WA because the platform teaches beginners what they need to know to get an online business/affiliate business off the ground. 

    Reply
    • Thanks Nate, it’s great to hear from someone who has actually experienced the best affiliate marketing programs for  beginners first hand. I also have had experience in all four and do agree. All of my knowledge has come from Wealthy Affiliate for sure. Thanks for visiting my site. 

      Reply

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Want to Earn From Affiliate Programs?

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