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As an online marketer or affiliate marketer, most of your revenue will be generated through well-known affiliate marketing platforms, and these also tend to be the platforms that have been around the longest. Longevity means their business model is working and they are trusted by the bigger brands.
Any serious affiliate marketer needs to know about the top platforms and their relative strengths, weaknesses so that I know which ones to search for AM programs in particular niches and regions.
Without further ado, and in no particular order, here are the top affiliate marketing platforms yoi can register with to search for AM progams to join...
Depth and Breadth of Products. In excess of 3,000 merchants
Long History and Highly Rated. Founded in 1998 and still going strong. Say’s it all!
Unique Selling Point. Offers a feature-rich platform for affiliate marketers such as, for example, real-time reporting.
Products and Programs on the platform CJ probably has one of the broadest ranges of products and services amongst all of the main affiliate marketing platforms as you might expect being amongst the first platforms in this market sector.
Any Cons? Accounts are deactivated after six months without earning a commission, and their merchants have a reputation for being selective on who they accept as publishers, CJ Affiliate is best for those who get steady traffic to their websites.
Depth and Breadth of Products. You won’t find many big brands here, but there is a larger number of niches and sectors covered, mostly bu digital info type offerings.
Long History and Highly Rated. Long track record. Founded in 2000. Longevity means they are doing something right and should generally be trusted. The Better Business Bureau gives ShareASale an A+ rating
Unique Selling Point. For me, Clickbank is kind of like the Ebay of affiliate marketing. Anyone can set themselves up on the platform as a merchant/advertiser and get there product/service sold in the same way anyone can sell anything on Ebay. But this USP leads to Clickbanks main criticism…
Any Cons? Clickbank can be seen as a bit scammy sometimes. Or at least that perception is there as there are a lot os smaller players in the market on the platform. I am sure CB do their due diligence on merchants but the perception at least persists for now.
Products and Programs on the platform. Good for digital products, software and digital info products
Good for digital products, software and digital info products
The search facility in the ‘Markeplace’ for products lists number of products sold. refunds etc so you can see which are the popular products that can earn good commissions
Like clickbank, possibly perceived as a bit scammy, but again, maybe unfairly so
Depth and Breadth of Products. Compared to Clickbank. better bigger brands can be found on ShareaSale. Over 3,900 affiliate programs in 40 different categories.
Long History and Highly Rated. Long track record. Founded in 2000. Longevity means they are doing something right and should generally be trusted. The Better Business Bureau gives ShareASale an A+ rating
Unique Selling Point. Not so much of a USP but SaS is trusted by some bigger brands.
Products and Programs on the platform. Maybe biased more towards products as compared to its big Brother (and owning company Awin – See next section) but you will be able to find services, physical goods, SAAS (software as a service), and digital downloads
Long History and Highly Rated. Long track record and a well-established network.
Unique Selling Point. Trusted by bigger brands. You can filter by region and country the offers are available in.
Products and Programs on the platform. In general the usual array of services, physical goods, SAAS (software as a service), and digital downloads. Good for Finance, Retail, Telco’s, Travel.
Highly Rated. Founded in 2008 by a team of internet marketing and technology experts who previously founded Commission Junction
Unique Selling Point. Disrupted the affiliate marketing industry by moving away from the traditional affiliate network model, introducing a SaaS technology platform for performance marketing professionals to better grow and manage partnerships and publishers. (i.e. You!)
Products and Programs on the platform. A huge array of predominantly product-based offerings but also some service-based companies thrown in for good measure.
Long track record and highly rated. Founded in 1996, Rakuten Marketing (formerly LinkShare) was there at the start of this market sector. Rakuten has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.
Unique Selling Point. Ranked the #1 affiliate network for 7 straight years by a leading industry publication.
Products and Programs on the platform. There are only about 1,000 merchants on the platform. However, you will find many household names there so the earning potential is good.
Depth and Breadth of Products. FlexOffers is a relatively new affiliate program. Founded 2008. 12,000+ merchants in 25+ categories across 27 countries. Hundreds of new merchants are added each week.
Unique Selling Point. When you sign up you’re assigned a dedicated affiliate manager. This makes it a good fit from beginners through to veterans of affiliate marketing.
Products and Programs on the platform A very broad range of both products and services on this platform.
Any Cons? The sign-up process is a bit long-winded (Flex… all those questions really necessary? Website verification as well! Really?)… OK, rant over… once you’re in, it’s worth the effort (raises eyebrows)!
Depth and Breadth of Products. With 1,500 merchants, Pepperjam has fewer affiliate programs than its competitors, but their approach is quality over quantity.
Unique Selling Point. See the points above. Quality affiliate programs give publishers, (you), a reassuring feeling when signing up to any particular program.
Products and Programs on the platform Despite the number of merchants being less than other platforms there is still an impressive array of niches and sector covered.
Any Cons? The main one is not having quite so many merchants on their platform
Depth and Breadth of Products. When it comes products, as you already know, Amazon is the King. Whatever your niche you will find products to promote on Amazon.
Unique Selling Point. Refer to the point above. There is no platform on planet earth that can match Amazon at this time, and it doesn’t look like that is going to change anytime soon!
Any Cons?
* Amazon Associates pays you approximately 60 days after the end of the month in which the commission was earned. Not the end of the world, you still get paid, but it ain’t quick Amazon!
* Including affiliate links in emails is against Amazon’s company policy. If email marketing is your primary method for promoting affiliate products, you will need to direct people to your site or landing page first.
* Commission rates aren’t as high as other affiliate programs/platforms (but customers who go on to buy other products after using your link will earn you the commissions on those products also).
Depth and Breadth of Products. eBay has 1.1 billion listings. It’s biased to physical products of course, but if anyone is going to rival the Amazon Associates affiliate program, then its the EPN! 175 million buyers purchasing $23 billion of products each year. The Better Business Bureau gives eBay an A+ rating.
Unique Selling Point. the Bay EPN allows you to promote unique offerings that would be available on other affiliate platforms/networks.
Any Cons?
Only that the bias is totally towards physical products (with a smattering of digital products). But specialisation is probably a good thing.
Before you register with ant of the platforms above, you will need a blog setup to show that you have a medium through with to advertise affiliate programs. I use the Wealthy Affiliate platform to set blogs up and get the training that drives success and revenuer. CLICK HERE to see what they offer.
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