5 Great And 4 Not-So-Good Affiliate Programs
If you’re only getting 21 cents per week with Adsense, you’re probably wondering if it’s possible to make a living from blogging. Unfortunately, many fail to look past Google Adsense as ways to monetize their blog or website. The best channels for making money are usually through affiliate programs but even affiliate programs can range in degrees of success.
Lets start with the not-so-good four you shouldn’t waste your time on.
1) Amazon – Initially the affiliate program seems extraordinary. You get to sign-on with a superstore but the kick-back is between 4% to 8.5% of the purchase, with a maximum of $25 on personal computers, which otherwise be a great affiliate item to get a commission from. There are some people who are making money with Amazon, but most aren’t making a whole lot. Typically people will earn an average of .05-2 cents for every click they can send to Amazon.com. You’ll have to decide for yourself it that’s a good or bad number.
2) Chitika - You may find success with this affiliate program if your site is directly product related. If it isn’t…you may receive a poor performance from Chitika.
3) Auction Ads - Auction Ads gives 2% of referral revenue and many haven’t received much success per cut. Things may change as AuctionAds has just been sold to Media Whiz.
4) Clickxchange – Clickxchange’s interface is poor and their website performance is lousy. The quality of advertisers is low in comparison to the other alternatives, like CJ or ShareASale.
5 Great Programs/Networks
1) Text Link Ads – Text Link Ads lists your blog within their marketplace exposing your site to thousands of advertisers, allowing for easy payment. Upon referral, new advertisers get $100 worth of free text link ads if $125 is invested. That’s not too bad….and the referral program offers $25.
2) Commission Junction (CJ) - Commission Junction is an affiliate network bringing advertisers and publishers together. Best performing ads are listed first and a large variety of big advertisers utilize their system. They supply many advertiser text links and banner options to choose from. There are a few free offers on their site, such as Free Credit Report. A similar site to CJ but smaller is ShareASale, which offers some advertisers that CJ doesn’t list but their interface isn’t as easy to use.
3) Website Magazine - Website Magazine offers free magazines regarding internet news for a commission. The great thing about this magazine is that it has a lot of great information and news valuable to webmasters.
4) Bidvertiser – Besides Bidvertiser having a lower minimum payout of $10 versus Google’s $100 payout, Bidvertiser also allows you to categorize your listings instead of having them figure out which ads are best to place on your site like Google attempts to do. You can change the size and ad color, but make sure that they appear different than Google’s Adsense as Google’s TOS states that you cannot have other ads alongside it that look similar to your Adsense placement/format.
5) PayPerPost – PayPerPost is a great way for bloggers from time to time use to monetize their blog. I don’t suggest using it all the time, as your site will appear as a spam site (nothing other than reviews for money). Referrals are paid $15 per sign-up once the referrals first blog posting is approved. ReviewMe also has a referral program and offers $25 for new advertisers but you’ll probably get my sign-ups with PayPerPost.
Of course, this isn’t a complete list and possibly you may be one of the few to obtain great success with the not-so-good affiliate programs. It’s important when evaluating an affiliate program to find one that has been established and been around for years. Find affiliate programs that pay good commissions since you are going to work hard at selling the product. You don’t want to end up in situation of being overworked and underpaid.
The best affiliate programs to maximize conversion and also attract people to your site, are usually free offers! So, if you can find a free offer that makes sense take advantage of it.
I’ve heard really good things about amazon, I’ve tried Auction Ads on my site and I think over 2 months I mad about .25 cents lol so I took that off. A lot of good bloggers use chitika to make some good cash to but I’ve never experimented with it.
Hi Shaun – I’ve heard some of same, but I think the majority may be people creating a positive hype or have a product-focused site. Have you played with Amazon?
Amazon have a nice store API , and with the right domain you can make some nice money. I have never found CJ that good for me though.
Yeah, I’m using amazon right now and it’s bringing me nothing. Although, it partly my fault because it is in my footer area where less people can see it.
I was banned by commission junction and I’m to stubborn to sign back up with them. I was a member for nearly a year with no activity (had some things come up and couldn’t use them as early as I would have liked) and after about a year an a half of being with them, they banned me. I see it as a no harm no foul situation. I wasn’t causing them any money by staying on so why not leave me enabled? At the very least simply reactivate my account if I desire it to be instead of making me sign back up again under a new username.
I don’t have a Page Rank of 3 or 4 yet, which, from my understanding is what you need to get accepted to text link ads, but some say they will accept you if you don’t have page rank. I guess it depends on their mood at the time?
I’ve thought about starting with the pay per post as I don’t see it as a problem as long as every post on the blog doesn’t become paid, but a lot of people view it as junk and I’m not quite sure I want an alienate any readers that I do have.
Website Magazine sounds very interesting to me. I have also been using amazon for about 4 months now and I haven’t made any money at all with it.
Michael – yes, it actually has some great information and the greater plus is that’s a free subscription with some good website/internet news/marketing information.
Deron – Why did you get banned from CJ? Was it only because of an inactive account?
Susan: Yep, I guess. Never received a reason for the banning. I’ve heard that CJ is pretty shady in the past, but I think this little deal will make me avoid them totally. At least give me a reason. Everyone I talked to said that after six months of no activity they ban you, but I was a member for nearly a year and a half with no activity, so that doesn’t make sense either. lol
After so many weeks I am able to find a blog providing good information about the affiliate programs. I am glad to see that there are still few persons on the internet who are NOT using auto blog posters. Creating a blog like yours and maintaining it are difficult tasks but you managed it. Ok! Come to the point. However, you have tried to give good information about affiliate programs but I am still against affiliate programs. I mean fault is not in the affiliate programs but in the people. They do not want to work hard and leave the programs after some time. Now, you might be thinking, if I am against affiliate programs then why I am here at your blog. Actually I am doing some sort of research on affiliate programs and when started reading your blog, I sticked to it and could not stop myself writing comment. I am not so much against affiliate programs, but my nature is a sort of experimenting. I keep on doing experiments for making money in new ways. If you visit my website, clicking on my name in this comment then you are bound to get amazed. If, I write more about my site then you will think that I am spamming and I do not want to get my comment considered as spam. So, again from the begining, you have done a very good job! Hard work is appreciated! Well done! Thanks for providing such a nice detailed information. Keep it up!