Did you know affiliate marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry and still rising? That's why in this article I tell you about the highest paying affiliate programs for beginners. You will learn why it's the most profitable business to start when trying to make money online.
You'll also learn what affiliate marketing is, for those of you wondering and the best way to get started.
This is more urgent than ever before because more and more people are going broke trying to open up things like e-commerce stores or sell on Amazon. However, with the highest paying affiliate programs you're making the same amount of money, minus all the work of dealing with inventory and product shipment.
The best paying affiliate programs that I've identified in this article take you on the path of the least resistance. They are also time tested and proven.
More...
What is Affiliate Marketing
Before we identify the highest paying affiliate programs its important we take a minute to talk about what affiliate marketing is and how it works.
An Affiliate Marketer is a Publisher who promotes, recommends, or resells the products and/or services belonging to an Advertiser in exchange for a commission from leads or sales. In layman’s terms, you try and sell someone else' stuff.
Publisher vs Advertiser
Think of Advertisers as the people or companies in charge. ... Or at least the ones who can dictate what the Publishers are allowed to do and not do with their products and/or services.
Publishers help create the marketing opportunities for Advertisers. However, Advertisers have the ‘say so’ in how it’s done and who benefits from their high commission affiliate programs.
What you will soon find out, if not already is that making money as a Publisher makes the most sense when getting started. This is because most people find it easier to use and promote something someone else already created.
Plus, it’s only natural that people find an interest in using and recommending something before learning how to sell something on their own. However, many people find high commission affiliate programs, and get comfortable with it. So comfortable that there's no need for them to do anything else.
There is a lot of money to made in this industry.
In fact, its considered the most profitable online business to start, generating over $12 billion dollars in the US alone.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work
When you get a commission in exchange for a lead or sale that lead or sale is tracked using a link that places code on a visitor’s browser referred to as a “cookie.”
Referrals who come to a referred product or service, but don't buy will remain 'cookied,' depending on the length of time the Advertiser has set. It can be indefinitely or right after a lead has clicked away from the page.
High Commission affiliate programs use the term 'hard-coded.' These are leads that either buy from your referred link or they've registered (for a free account or some sort) with the Advertiser's product you referred them to.
These leads are hard-coded via an email address or other unique identifier used in the Advertiser's ecosystem.
Affiliate Marketing Example
Let’s say you are an online shopper who wants to buy snow tires for the winter months. You go online and search Google: “rocky mountain snow tire deals.” You click on the first link you see, and land on an affiliate marketer’s website.
On that Affiliate Marketer’s site, you find some pretty good deals, so you click one of their links to learn more.
You’re then redirected to Amazon.com to purchase the snow tires with that same deal you saw on the marketer’s website.
Well, it’s in that last click to Amazon where a “cookie” is placed on your browser and tracked back to Amazon and the corresponding affiliate. Amazon then pays that Affiliate Marketer a commission for publishing the space and marketing the opportunity that made your purchase possible.
You see, being an Affiliate Marketer is like being a door-to-door salesman, except you don’t have to go door-to-door. Instead, you can use one URL (link) to reach the entire world all from the comfort of your home thanks to the internet!
This is why Affiliate marketing is recognized as the most profitable online business to start!
The Highest Paying Affiliate Programs
The highest paying affiliate programs typically have higher quality products and are likely to stick around longer. That's because companies work extremely hard to make sure you as the Publisher can sell their products. Another reason making them the most profitable business and affiliate programs for beginners.
As the affiliate this is great news, because nothing is worse than you making a ton of money from a product only to learn that the product has been discontinued, no longer available, or no longer giving you commissions for the sales you make.
Direct Products with Affiliate Ecosystems
These high commission affiliate programs are known as direct products' with affiliate ecosystems. These are affiliate products that you can only get by registering directly with the company. You do this by going to their website to create a free or paid account.
With 'direct products' from reputable companies, rest assured you can find products that Affiliate Marketers typically love to not only sell, but to use for themselves.
They also make the best affiliate programs for beginners, despite the initial cost to join. That's right, unlike free, low-end affiliate products there is typically a small investment when registering with high commission affiliate programs.
Mass Market Appeal
The most profitable online business almost always has what's called 'mass market appeal.'
If a company doesn't have mass market appeal, they are not in business long. Products you have no idea who created them or what company they represent -- typically come from lower end affiliate networks, like Click Bank and JVZoo. Those are prime examples of companies with low mass market appeal, because they are filled with sole proprietors hoping to get lucky with their first and second product launches.
Mass market appeal is the buzz around a product. It's what gets people excited. It's the fact that you know people want and need this product? Moreover, there are specific and realistic outcomes or end results that the product or company can showcase, but more importantly that a lot of people want and need. Results that prove this product is quality and actually benefits others.
Everything else are more like fads. JVZoo and Clickbank products rise quickly in popularity, but then decline almost just as quick.
They also have a very large community of marketers that promote each other’s digital products by over promising and under delivering to make a sale.
Keyword Research Tool
One of the best ways to find out if a particular product has this type of 'mass market appeal' goes beyond searching individual networks for their best-selling products. Just because a particular product is doing well among other products on their network doesn’t necessarily tell us it has mass market appeal.
If you truly want to see what people across the world need and want you’ll need a good keyword research tool to make sure there are enough people searching for your product.
Affiliate Ecosystems: The Highest Paying Affiliate Programs
We now know that the most profitable business have programs backed by companies with affiliate marketing ecosystems. Again, these are programs that go above and beyond to make sure they make sales. This obviously includes affiliate sales.
As a result, their products are retained on average much longer than those on affiliate networks, like the ones we talked about. In turn, this sets up marketers with better chances to get more leads and sales
So, here are the top 5 reasons why companies with affiliate ecosystems on average have the highest paying affiliate programs
1. Customer Infrastructure
When high paying affiliate programs or companies can do things like:
- Promote your products for you
- Provide you as the affiliate with names and emails of those who just purchased from your link
- Allow you to get paid for a lifetime on virtually everything people buy from within their ecosystem that’s connected to you…
Just know that’s their customer infrastructure hard at work.
Companies with foundational services such as the following are worth millions. It reinforces why they are the most profitable online business and have the best affiliate programs for beginners:
- Website interfaces for ease of access
- Mobile telecommunications to send you and your customers text alerts
- Cloud computing to save your data
- Third party partnerships with embedded affiliate link features
- APIs & Integration to track customer transactions
If the company who’s direct product your selling provides this feature you’re in for a real treat. Affiliates who make a sale from places without this technology usually never learn about the customer on the other end who bought it. No name, no email, or anything related to the purchaser.
So, to learn someone’s name and email gives you the ability to follow up with them after their purchase. That's huge for an Affiliate Marketer!
Not only can you ensure that whoever just bought from you is getting the most out of their purchase, but you can build a better relationship with them down the road. As a result, you're more likely to double or even triple your income opposed to working with companies that don’t have this infrastructure.
2. Clicks and Payout Tracking Technology
As an Affiliate Marketer it’s important that when you send someone to an affiliate product’s sales page and this someone generates a sale for you, that you know about it from inside their ecosystem.
It’s 'peace of mind' to know that your customer made it to the sales page, took a look at your offer and made a purchase. This way you’d know your sales funnel is working properly.
Unfortunately, many affiliate companies and products as a whole don’t give their affiliates the ability to add funnel tracking. Funnel tracking gives you the ability to track who purchased what and from what traffic source. You'd need an affiliate link tracker for that, such as build redirects or click magick.
Click tracking however, shows you how many clicks you've generated to your affiliate link sales pages and how many sales you've generated.
Most affiliate ecosystems provide click tracking, and another reason is voted as one of the best affiliate programs for beginners.
Click tracking isn’t a dealbreaker, but important when scaling your affiliate marketing business. After all, if you can’t measure your results how can you improve them?
3. Provided Support & Resources
Another reason high paying affiliate programs are recognized as the most profitable business is because they have better support and resources. Working with a vendor that offers good support can make all the difference between a good or bad experience.
There’s nothing worse than a product not working the way it should and not being able to contact their support to tell them about it. You could easily lose a lot of customers this way which can mean more refunds and/or never getting paid.
The bottom line is, problems can occur, and knowing you have support from product vendors gives you peace of mind.
Support can be offered by a company in several ways, but the highest paying affiliate programs have all three.
- Email support - Every company should have this
- Support tickets- To log and track every support case
- Live 24/7 support - Addresses concerns within hours.
Resources the most profitable online business include, but not limited to are:
- Landing pages you can download or copy to help you make more sales
- Clickable banners you can place on your website to attract leads
- Swipe copy you can copy and paste as email or social media posts
- Even, things like logos, audios & video training, 1-page websites all aimed to brand and support you
When you find affiliate programs for beginners with this type of support and resources 9 times out of 10 you’ve found a high paying affiliate program.
4. Profitable 'Product Suits'
'Product suits' are another reason affiliate marketing ecosystems are recognized as the most profitable online business.
Most, if not all high paying affiliate programs have 'product suites.' 'Product suites' mean the company has multiple products that you can sell. Like how Apple, doesn’t just make money from iPhones. In the same way, the highest paying affiliate programs don't make money off of one product either. If they are then I’d hope the company would be creating more soon.
'Product suites' set you up for multiple streams of income or MSIs while conveniently operating under the roof of one company. These 'product suites' typically include low and high-priced offers that compliment each other very well.
5. Direct and Indirect Commissions
Finally, the highest paying affiliate programs have both direct and indirect paying structures, and they generally pay higher commissions.
When you get paid directly for every sale I mean how much money you make each time someone you refer pays and signs up. High commission affiliate programs should be able to:
- Pay at least 40% commission
- Have products that allow you to earn $30 dollars per sale minimum
- Incorporate residual or recurring commission payments
- Offer increasing bonus commissions based on the amount of sales you get
But, what’s amazing is that the best paying affiliate programs pay you an indirect ecosystem commission as well. This means you get paid without doing any of the work.
Basically, once your referral has joined the affiliate ecosystem they are hard-coded to you via their email address. Then when they decide to buy or make a purchase from within the ecosystem (product suites) of that company you get the commission.
This is the most acclaimed reason affiliate marketing (ecosystems) are recognized as the most profitable online business.
The Highest Paying Affiliate Programs to Join
The two programs listed below are high paying affiliate programs not necessarily because they pay crazy high commissions like 60% or higher, which is very rare by the way.
They are considered the highest paying affiliate programs and most profitable online business because of their:
For example, with mass market appeal you generate higher commissions because there is more traffic available that you can tap into.
Or saving money on getting started or being able to adjust to a different product or company should something happen.
You see, it's because of these 5 things listed here that I consider them among the highest paying affiliate programs.
Not forgetting to mention that on average Affiliate Marketers made more than any other business method, making between $70,000 and $120,000 dollars in 2018 (Affstat Affiliate Marketing Benchmarks).
Partner With Anthony (PWA) - $97 One Time Price
"Partner with Anthony" is an educational ecosystem by Anthony Morrison. He teaches beginners or people who want to make money how to build an online marketing business. You learn in daily released sessions (24hrs) comprised of easy to understand over-the-shoulder training and mindset development videos.
It's best known for its cheap price to get started and Anthony's consistent (Success Connection) training.
As an affiliate program for beginners you start making 50%, which is considered a high commission affiliate program (50% and above).
First things first... Get set up with free access.
You're first creating a free account because you can check out every thing Anthony Morrison has to offer before you purchase anything. This includes getting free access to his members only training portal, called "Morrison Education."
Furthermore, you'll get access to his free marketing products, including access to the Success Connection, his private Facebook Community (group) and his Profit Cycle Blueprint (training course).
Again you're getting access to all of this before you make any commitment to buy anything. To create your free account and check out everything Anthony Morrison has to offer click here.
Once inside your training portal you’ll see your courses outlined in green and software products outlined in blue. Just click on any one of them to learn more about it. It's where you'll find the Profit Cycle Blueprint, the Success Connection, and access to Anthony's private Facebook Community.
Last but not least, in “Available Courses” is where you’ll find the Partner with Anthony program. You can join if that was your intention to do so or you can learn more about it in another article I have posted here.
Four Percent Group VIP - $497 Every Year
The Four Percent Group is an educational ecosystem by Vick Strizheus. Similar to Partner with Anthony, anyone interested in building an online marketing business can create an account for free and find value.
Unlike Partner with Anthony however, the Four Percent Group takes it up several notches based on:
- More than personal Development, but teaching you how to convert theory into practice
- Eliminating confusion and overwhelm based on coaching levels the suit your experience
- A plethora of programs, live streams, and webinars according to your coaching level
The Four Percent Group is best known for it's 'Gold Level' package. At the Gold level you get everything needed to build the business of your dreams.
As an affiliate program for beginners you start making 40%.
First thing first... Get a setup with 'BASIC LEVEL' access.
Once there look for the "Join us" button, fill in a few simple details and click, "create a new account."
You want basic level access, because it's free first-of-all. Second, because it's how you will get access to the remaining levels: Silver; Gold; and Platinum.
As a 'Basic' member you will also get access to the '7-Steps of Freedom,' the foundation of all coaching levels.
To learn more about the Four Percent's VIP affiliate program check out my article here. For general information about the company check out my Four Percent Group Review found here.
What's Not So Great About Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing isn't the most profitable online business without downsides.
Affiliate programs for beginners take time to build an audience that knows, likes and trusts you.
You also don’t control your audience’s experience. If they have a bad experience with the Advertiser or product, it can reflect poorly on you as the referral. It’s for this reason that most affiliate programs pay their affiliates 30-45 days after each sale to compensate for any returns or refunds.
Finally, it can be hard to stand out due to rising competition. This is especially true if multiple affiliates share the same audience. Your audience can become overwhelmed with promotions they’ve already seen. All the more reason to make sure your offers stand out.
High Paying Affiliate Marketing Tools
The 3 essential tools you'll need to begin marketing and generating leads regardless of what you're doing online to make money:
- A Landing page builder
- An Email List Manager (autoresponder)
- And a Link Tracker
I use all three tools for $70/month. That's about $840/year.
If you can learn how to make just $1 you can learn how to make $71/month and profit.
Learn more about each tool and the only ones I use from my article here: The 3 Best Online Business Tools Used When Marketing Online
My Affiliate Program for Beginners
No high paying affiliate program is worth your investment if you can't do this one thing...
That is produce and communicate free or inexpensive value that entices an audience to want to learn more, follow you, and purchase what you have to offer.
My 9-Week Transformation Program
With that said, I want to teach you how to do this in my 9-week affiliate program for beginners (transformation program)
Affiliate marketing is not hard, but it is something that takes some time to learn and implement, and then more time will be spent promoting your affiliate links to make sales.
In the beginning it feels like an uphill battle to make $100 in affiliate commissions - but once I help you set up your affiliate promotions, and once you are actively promoting them and sending traffic to your offers and sales pages - you WILL make sales.
The key is you need to be consistent in your marketing efforts. Do not ignore the ‘marketing’ in affiliate marketing. In my 9-week course I help you do exactly that, market and generate leads.
You can not simply place an affiliate link in your sidebar, and expect to have the most profitable online business.
But, I am going to show you how to make those sales, as I’m sharing with you exactly what I do with my affiliate links, so that you will be well-equipped and knowledgeable on how to make sales too.
I have been earning a living as a blogger and marketing strategist for over a decade. I have a whole bag of insights to help you skip the painful trial-and-error woes of learning how to affiliate marketing.
Learn the most profitable online business by checking out my training hub here.
Great article, thank you for taking the time to put this together. I am really looking forward to working my way through this program, and thank you for offering to help me.
Dave
Dave! Thanks for coming by. It was great talking with you earlier. Let me know how I can continue to help with any questions or onboarding you with any platform regarding the Four Percent or anything relating to affiliate marketing. You can find me on Facebook or shoot me an email
Fantastic article, everything is in detail, thanks for sharing Ross Curington.
I’m so glad I could help!