Many e-commerce sales come from affiliate marketing, making it one of the most effective strategies for generating passive income. For affiliates, though, choosing the right affiliate program is crucial — a decision that can make or break your efforts.
With the right affiliate program, you can build strategic partnerships with reliable, high-paying advertisers that your customers love and that bring good profit to your business. But before you enroll in your best affiliate program, you should screen it scrupulously, including the traffic it accepts, the payment structure it provides, the cookie duration, and many other factors.
So it’s really the depth of research that makes the difference.
Read on to learn how to choose an affiliate program that resonates with your business.
Popular Affiliate Programs: Are They a Good Choice?
It goes without saying that both affiliates and advertisers see affiliate programs as a way to grow their bottom line by acquiring or selling leads, with the only difference being that advertisers want to pay the lowest possible commission for the leads they get, whereas affiliates wish to charge as much as possible for the leads they sell.
This is how the affiliate market is created. The demand meets the supply at some point, and then the trade is possible.
More often than not, affiliate marketing involves an affiliate network that mediates the process. In this scenario, advertisers place the bids for the leads they’d like to buy, and if these bids equal or exceed the affiliate’s minimum price per lead, advertisers buy the respective leads.
But then again, affiliate marketing isn’t limited to buying and selling leads but has plenty of additional benefits, like building long-lasting relationships, transparency of the process, the ability to expand into new markets, and more.
Here’s what marketers think about affiliate marketing:
Source: Statista
One of the most important choices to make is the choice of the payment model. To maximize your earnings, you have to make sure that the commission per lead is decent and – no less importantly – that you can easily sell the traffic you generate to your advertisers.
Here are the most popular affiliate payment models:
| Pay Per Sale (PPS) | Affiliates receive commissions for actual sales | Affiliates are focused on driving purchases |
| Pay Per Lead (PPL) | Affiliates receive a commission for selling the lead’s contact info | Affiliates are focused on driving qualified leads (that is, leads that meet the affiliate program’s criteria) |
| Pay Per Click (PPC) | Affiliates earn money on clicks | Affiliates are focused on generating clicks on their affiliate links |
Launching an affiliate program is a great choice for advertisers who want to reach audiences they cannot reach with owned media, as well as those willing to generate more customers with less effort. For affiliates, the right affiliate program is a chance to monetize their traffic while adding value to their business by providing extra value to their audience.
This mutually beneficial partnership allows businesses and marketers to win together, creating synergies that deliver results for all participants.
Here’s how to choose an affiliate program:
Source: Ahrefs
Here are some basic tips on selecting a matching affiliate program:
- Opt for proven programs with high or recurring commissions
- Longer cookie durations = more time to earn
- Link tracking provides insights and ensures accurate attribution
How To Choose the Right Affiliate Program, from the Most to The Least Important Factors
Settling with an affiliate platform can be overwhelming, but what you can do is focus on programs that match your traffic and offer a clear, rewarding commission structure. Then consider less important factors.
So here’s how to choose an affiliate program step-by-step:
Step 1 — Check Whether the Program Accepts Your Type of Traffic
While 81% of marketers and 84% of publishers use affiliate marketing as a core part of their strategies, not all of them necessarily care about the relevance of the product or service they promote. And this is where bad things can happen: if you’re not adding value to your content with your affiliate offer, you might quickly lose trust and damage your brand image.
Aligning affiliate programs with your niche significantly increases conversions. For instance, solar panel companies will find a perfect partnership with green energy products, while home improvement gadget sellers will succeed with tech innovation products.
Long story short, choose affiliate programs that accept your type of traffic and provide products your audience can benefit from. Some affiliate programs may not accept social media traffic or traffic from specific locations, so make sure to check these nuances in the first place.
Step 2 — Check the Commission Model and Payment Structure
Once you’ve made sure the program accepts your type of traffic, check its payment model: pay-per-lead, pay-per-sale, or a more exotic payment model like, for example, pay-per-click or pay-per-download.
There are no better or worse commission models, but not every model may suit you, especially if you’re new to affiliate marketing. The biggest difference in affiliate models is likely whether you need the referred customer to make a purchase with your advertiser to get paid.
Here’s the difference between pay-per-lead and pay-per-sales affiliate programs:
- With pay-per-sale affiliate programs, you only get a commission if the referred customer (the customer who’s clicked your affiliate link) makes a purchase with your advertiser. Depending on the industry, you get from 1% to 50% commission on the purchase.
- With pay-per-lead affiliate programs, you get a commission on every qualified lead you generate for your advertiser. In fact, you are simply selling leads that match your advertiser’s demographics, traffic source, and other criteria. And it’s much simpler.
All other things being equal, it makes sense to choose a program with higher commission rates; 15–30% commissions are usually good enough to consider the program. But then again, don’t forget that you must be able to sell your traffic to get paid.
Step 3 — Check the Expected Conversion Rates
Speaking of selling traffic, choosing a pay-per-lead affiliate program means you don’t rely on your advertiser’s sales skills. Imagine a situation where you sell high-quality leads, but the company on the other end mismanages them, so they don’t convert. Then you won’t get any commission for these leads, and the ROI of your campaign might drop if you’re unlucky to face such situations more or less often.
This is why checking the conversion rates with the affiliate program in question makes sense. Most advertisers know the percentage of leads they can convert, so getting the expected conversion rate from them is usually not a problem.
Step 4 — Make Sure You Can Trust Your Affiliate Program
A program’s reputation reflects its reliability — check reviews and payment history for red flags like delays, unclear terms and conditions, low conversion rates, etc. Trusted programs are always focused on building lasting, respectful relationships.
Likewise, affiliate programs tend to support their affiliates with creative materials and tracking software. Speaking of which, 40% of affiliate marketers believe that the right support, like offering lead generation forms, can make a huge difference.
Step 5 — Negotiate the Commission Rates
Less experienced affiliates might not even consider negotiating with advertisers, but it’s actually possible if you generate high-quality traffic. At the end of the day, companies need customers, and if you can provide those customers to them, they may increase your conversion rates.
Even in the worst-case scenario, negotiating won’t lose you anything.
The Most Popular Affiliate Networks
| ShareASale |
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| Awin |
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| CJ Affiliate |
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Avoid These Mistakes When Choosing Your Affiliate Program
| High Commissions Over Quality | Don’t prioritize commissions without considering quality | A balance ensures long-term success and credibility with your audience. |
| Niche Relevance and Audience Fit | Avoid irrelevant programs that don’t match your niche | Programs that align with your niche increase conversions and boost credibility |
| Contract Terms and Payment Conditions | Don’t ignore contract details like payment schedules or exclusivity clauses | Reviewing terms ensures transparency and reliable payments |
Monetize Your Traffic with Profitise
Profitise is a leading insurance and solar affiliate network for affiliates who are selling quality web leads and phone calls. With hundreds of businesses already joined and even more to come, Profitise is a to-go place to monetize your traffic.
With Profitise, you get:
- Embeddable JavaScript forms to generate qualified insurance and solar leads
- Large lead market to sell your traffic instantly
- High price for your web and call leads
- Free assistance from your affiliate manager
Sell leads with Profitise as an affiliate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an affiliate program, and how does it work?
An affiliate program is a set of rules describing how affiliates can earn by generating traffic for advertisers. The two most popular affiliate program types are pay-per-lead and pay-per-sale affiliate programs, rewarding affiliates for generated leads and sales, respectively.
How to choose products for affiliate marketing
Identify your audience’s needs and use networks like Awin, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, or Profitise to find programs that match your niche, evaluating their reputation, product quality, and commission structure.
What tools and resources are available to help me find affiliate programs?
Leverage affiliate marketplaces, blogs, and review sites for recommendations. For example, Profitise offers ready-made lead generation forms to enhance your affiliate marketing strategy.
