In my opinion, Affiliate Marketing is the best way to make money on the internet. As affiliates, we drive internet commerce and get paid well… very well. And if you’re smart enough to build a system that brings residuals and operates on its own, then you can set yourself up with a very nice lifestyle (a little financial FREEDOM, perhaps?). I admit, you need to love working on the computer or at the bare minimum, know your way around proficiently to do well at and enjoy AM but I have an inkling that describes most of the people reading this. I got annoyed one day when I went to the internet searching for lists of the best affiliate programs. I wanted people to tell me their favorites and why. But the www was devoid of quality. So after a LOT of time searching for programs and making money with them, I am ready to write my own list and attempt to fill the gap.
When rating an affiliate program, I take a number of things into consideration. My favorites are really the ones that have make me the most money. So the #1 factor is how much money I’ve been able to make with a certain program. I also consider the tier structure. Usually they are 1 or 2 tiered. In my experience, more than that is considered a Network Marketing company (AM and NM are similar in many ways). I prefer 2 tiered programs because it compounds the whole situation when you can add affiliates to make you money… you never know who you’ll wind up sponsoring. The trade off is that the first level payout might be smaller but I take that into consideration. I am going to list some companies that give a good first level commission and have 2 tiers. Obviously conversion rates are important but so is the cost of advertising in the niche. A high conversion with low expense is ideal. The affiliate tools that are provided are quite important. Ease of use of the affiliate backend is important. Timeliness of payment and method is also important. For me direct deposit is obviously the first choice, then paypal, then check. Some programs have caveats and some have enormous hidden benefits.I take all this into consideration… here’s the breakdown (keep in mind, numbering them was really hard):
1) Acme People Search
What a wild system this guy’s got! Carefully calculated, perfectly constructed, it walks you through a process that wipes the competition away. Kudos to the creator, Tissa Godavitarne for coming up with such a impressive system. The progression from sales letter to getting the sign up and making it a turn key system is amazingly seamless and simple. You’ll see what I mean if you sign up (for free). He’s basically allowing you to piggyback his “people search engine” concept and create a copy website for you to make money off of – this becomes of obvious benefit to everybody as you go through it. He also GUARANTEES you $125 in commissions in your first 24 hours and delivers! Of course, you need $200 accumulated to get paid out but it’s still money if you can create the other $75. That’s not a hard thing to do given the amount of ways you can make money with this system. At first, the ways to make money were a bit unclear but once I got it, it went WHAM! and I realized how powerful and turnkey this thing was. I know I sound ridiculous with the old “turnkey” business but you can sign up for free and call me out if you want. You’ll see what I mean when you do it. He’s got some great systems in place for customer retention and incentivizing but none require extra work on your part. Just drive targeted traffic to the landing page and watch the system make the signups for you, literally. Since I’m one who hates being tied to the phone, I love the “phonelessness” of this program. If you do decide to join and get your own search engine, make sure you complete all 3 steps to get the $125 in free commissions (they’re easy and take a couple hours, you’ve just got to do them, ya know?). The only thing I don’t like is the fact that he hands out ridiculous, un-memorizable usernames so I have to have it handy to log in. Other than that, the site is well organized, offers free training, metrics, and walks you literally, step by step through the process. I think it might be impossible not to make money with this system.
You can become an affiliate right away here.
You can view Tissa’s “Proof Board” here.
2) The Renegade Network Marketer by Ann Sieg
I know that this says Network Marketing and people are going to think I’m focusing on Network Marketing instead of Affiliate Marketing, but I’m not. “The Renegade Network Marketer” is a book about NM and there’s an excellent affiliate program and system behind the book. I’ve made A LOT of money with the Renegade System. Here are the reasons: 1) It’s a revolutionary product with excellent insight about Network Marketing. 2) 50% commission payout for first level, 20% on second level. 3) Free access to the Renegade System with purchase of book. 4) Sophisticated back-end that auto-sells products for you, including some of the other top programs I’m going to list. 5) Excellent free give away (“The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing”) to build your list and automatically pre-sell the customer. 6) Consistent producer – landing page has turned a 2-3% conversion ratio on ebook and 25% on free ebook. 7) Access to the Renegade Professional – an intense course with Ann Sieg and Mike Klinger that will blow up your business. 8) Access to the the Renegade Breakthrough Mentoring Program… only for the very serious money makers who want to work directly with Ann and Mike. What’s also great is you get ONE YEAR FREE of Renegade Pro (a $600 value and currently sold out) when you sign up for RBTM. 9) Easy to use site with tons of free QUALITY information (I learned some pretty mean PPC just from Ann’s free section) and all the ad tools. 10) Direct deposit paid bi-weekly. Ann Sieg is well respected in the industry and writes great books. Because of this, she has her own brand and has created her own advertising niche – this makes it easy to stick out in a sea of network marketing training. If the book and system didn’t make you money, the information would still be worth the $67 asking price. THEN THE KICKER COMES IN: When somebody buys the book, they provide you their name, address, and email and are immediately a willing and informed prospect for any opportunity you want to offer them. People pay ridiculous amount for these types of amazing leads (What is it? $4-25 a lead for somebody who has filled out a survey or opted in? This is somebody who just read a book on NM!) and you’re getting them as a prospect whilst making money selling the book. This is the beauty. Don’t miss out on this one.
Ann only offers the affiliate opportunity to those who have purchased the book.
You can get the Renegade Network Marketer book and System here.
You can get the FREE ebook, “The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing” here.
You can check out Renegade Professional here,
The Renegade Breakthrough Mentoring Program here,
Mike Klinger’s “How I Build My First List” here,
And Ann Sieg’s “Marketer’s Manifesto” FREE report here
3) Site Build It!
SBI is considered one of the premier website building services on the internet. They help you build it, optimize it, and monetize it with a fairly simple interface. They give you products for free that you would otherwise have to pay for such as hosting, keyword research, and search engine optimization. The product is good so there’s a high conversion rate. I was pleasantly pleased to find people buying through the Renegade System without me even mentioning it once. This happened a lot and the commission is hefty. They pay $75 for the basic one year subscription. There’s also many repeat sales, upsells (offers to build it for you etc.), and the possibility to multiple purchases. Then there’s your 2nd tier which is VERY powerful with the residual income. Once people build a website, they usually want keep it and that costs money (much less than the setup though). They have a ludicrous amount of tools. Seriously. They almost have TOO MANY. The affiliate site can be overwhelming at first and there is so much information that I do not know how anybody could get through all of it. I just pick and choose and now I know my way around. Up until recently they only paid by check, but now they are paying by paypal to confirmed accounts. It is widely considered one of the best affiliate programs on the net and I’m sure they’ll continue to stay ahead of the curve.
You can become an affiliate of SBI! here.
You can learn about the SBI! product here. (I chose the affiliate marketing landing page for you guys)
Network Marketers might want to check out SBI! here.
4) The Second Tier
Russell Brunson is a terrific marketer with terrific products. Want to know how to become a strong affiliate on the web? You should not pass up looking at Russell’s materials. He’s got a wide variety of products with different price ranges (from free to $50 to $1000) to choose from so you can appeal to your niche. He offers free weekly training and an extensive training archive once you sign up as an affiliate (which is free). The affiliate backend is easy to use and understand, has a very nice layout, has all the tools, and keeps metrics. Seems like most of the products pay around a %50 commission and most offer 2 tiers. The reason I love telling you about The Second Tier is because the focus of the site is on learning how to be a strong affiliate and that’s what this is all about. The one thing I don’t like is that he pays only by check. Everything else is a go. You might think there is a catch when you get to the website, like you might have to pay something – but I assure you, it’s free and you won’t be asked for a credit card or paypal.
You can become an affiliate here.
If you’re interested in Russell Brunson’s products, it’s best to find them all in the affiliate backend instead of me listing them all here.
5) Amazon.com
I don’t think this affiliate program needs much explaining. You know their products and their domination of the industry. That’s pretty much a good enough reason to become an affiliate. It doesn’t matter what niche you’re in, there’s a book on Amazon.com that you should be putting a link to on your website. The payouts are kinda small but so are the purchases. Do it enough times and… you get the point. Only issue I have with them is that it’s one tier… oh yea, and the homophobic thing too. But they have great tools such as the ability to make your own store. I had fun with that and stuck all my favorite books up there. Obviously, being an affiliate of Amazon is a must if you have a website or if you are a twitterholic like myself.
You can become an affiliate here.
You can check out my affiliate store with all my favorite books here.
6) Twitter Traffic Machine
Speaking of Twitter, if you’re on it and you want to build your following, Twitter Traffic Machine by Bill Crosby is the way to go. Just look at my stats on twittercounter.com. 8,000 followers in 40 days can’t be wrong. It’s $27 and you get a bunch of video tutorials that guide you step by step through the process. You can consult my recent blog post where I discuss the details of growing your twitter account as fast as possible using TTM and other tricks I’ve found. He teaches you how to use the system to advertise it through Twitter and make money while you’re building your following. Granted, it seems this program is all over Twitter right now but thankfully new people are joining everyday and the sales still file in. With a 40%+ commission, low price, and large unique need, it’s worth being involved in. They pay through Clickbank which is fine with me, especially because I’ve got other CB programs paying out (there are others on this list). I also like the sales page which has a high converting video. I think I would be on here promoting Hummingbird if their price wasn’t almost $200 and didn’t only have software for PCs. TTM is a much better deal, is internet based, and teaches you independence and use of other twitter tools.
It seems as though the only way to become an affiliate is to purchase TTM. You can look at the TTM product here.
7) Guaranteed Website Visitors
I like this website because it is simple and cheap. They have good packages for traffic where you can buy visitors for as low as 1.2 cents each. You can pay a little extra (1.9 cents each) for higher quality traffic. The caveat is that you should only use this service for business opportunities. It might work for other traffic but why try? Just focus using this service for business opportunities and you’ll be sending cheap targeted traffic to your site. Just an example of how this could work with say, The Renegade Network Marketer: I’ve historically had a 2%+ conversion rate on visitors to the sales page. If you could get just a .25% sales success rate on 10,000 visitors (who also get your cookies just by going to the site), then you will sell 25 books which equals $837.5 – a profit of $717.5. You can break even with a .035% sales rate which is 57 times less effective than than my normal 2% success rate using PPC. Even twitter traffic gets much higher conversion rates than that. The affiliate program is good because the service is good and EVERYBODY needs it, especially if your niche is home based business opportunities or something similar. The packages are good and a 30% commission rate is not too shabby, especially if the service works and people come back for more visitors. The conversion rate is also high. What I don’t like is the lack of tools and only one tier. Just a nice one to offer in your arsenal though.
You can become an affiliate here. Just go to the bottom of the page when you get there. You can also learn about the service on this page.
8) Wordtracker
It is almost essential to join up as an affiliate of WT for a couple of reasons. The main one is that it’s by far, the best service of it’s kind (keyword research). If you’re not getting keyword research with your website service (like SBI! offers), then you will need something like this and none of the others come even close. Wordtracker has ultimately made me a lot of money by giving me niche keyword ideas that I would have never thought of and are much cheaper to advertise than the ones I did think of. Another major reason is the fact that they have a two tiers with a monthly service which can be VERY powerful. The monthly subscription price is high, for sure. Which is good if you’re an affiliate (make sure you sign up with them as a “publisher”) but not so good as a buyer. But like I said, ultimately it will make you money in the long run if you use the service, assuming you are doing any keyword based advertising. The tools are amazing and the backend is easy to use. It’s also part of the Renegade System backend. They’ve been around for a while and I have a feeling they’re not going anywhere.
You can become an affiliate here. Go to the “Affiliates” link on the top menu bar when you get there.
You can look at the free trial of the service here.
You can look at their free keyword tool here.
9) pocketsfiller.com
This program is good because of what they promote: “Home Business in a Box.” I like this idea because I believe most people can’t and won’t come up with a good system to make money online. So I like the ones that seem to do MOST (never ALL) of the work for you and automatically make money with very little pioneering on your own part. This is one of those programs. Learn, apply, and receive funds. I like their affiliate program because it’s a 75% payout, a very good price point ($49.95), and a 60 day money back guarantee. That does mean that refunds are possible but it makes it much more attractive to buyers. Refunds just come with the territory sometimes as an affiliate – that’s why it’s important to sell good products. I don’t like that the tools are sparse and they don’t have an affiliate backend. They go through Clickbank which is acceptable. Good business opportunities that offer 75% commission are rare so it’s worth a bit of promoting to see if it’ll work for you like it does for me.
You can check out the program here. Go to the bottom of the page to become an affiliate.
10) Send Out Cards
I know, I know, SOC is not an “affiliate program.” But it’s #10 and I thought I should mention it because it’s a one of a kind service that is useful for everybody and the money making is just so good. It can also easily be seen as an affiliate program. Send Out Cards is a network marketing company that, just like it’s name suggests, sends out greeting (or thanks you, etc.) cards to people. The normal costs of this action are slashed and simplified which helps business owners send physical cards to their prospects and also can automate it for you. The power of sending a physical card to a prospect cannot be overstated. They may not look at the card right away but chances are they will not discard it as junk mail and will probably keep it around for a while, reminding them to look at your opportunity. When you use this tool to help promote your network marketing, affiliate marketing, or home business opportunity it will inherently increase sales and increase customer retention at a very low cost. The compensation structure is also complete madness! It almost seems like they’re giving away too much money. When you sign someone up, you get a huge bonus. When those people sign someone up, you get a bigger bonus. And when your business gets big enough, you can get paid on unlimited levels. It’s also another program available in the Renegade System backend and I have qualified prospects ASKING ME about the company automatically thanks to Ann’s awesome sales letter. The issue I have with SOC is that their user interface could be a little better and easier to use. They have made strides here though and it doesn’t minimize the effectiveness of the product. Also, the entry cost is substantial (close to $400). But as with any NM opportunity, you get something for your money and it turns out to be a really good deal (you get a bunch of cards, convention tickets, free training, etc.). Plus, the potential to make that money back with only a few signups is right there. They also only pay by check (which we know I do not prefer). But even if you don’t want to be part of the income opportunity, you can buy the service for much cheaper which sets you apart immediately when you come off the internet and move into tangible parts. Another great benefit is I am only 2 levels away from Ann Sieg herself and joining will bring you only 3 levels away from her and there will be an opportunity to become part of her “team” for free. Do yourself a favor and learn about SOC.
As in any NM company, you need to buy in to be an affiliate. You can learn about SOC and become an affiliate here.
Thats it! The best ten affiliate programs that I know about. Ultimately, if you learn and implement correctly I think you can make a lot of money with any of the above programs. Many of them offer great, free training so take advantage! I hope you benefitted from and continue to benefit from the information. Feel free to leave me feedback on this blog or on twitter at www.twitter.com/freeist. Much success!
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