Posted by Affiliate programs pay you for driving traffic (and sales) for other brands. Because there are thousands of affiliate programs online, finding the right one can be tough. As someone who’s been in digital marketing for years, I know this first-hand.
This is why I keep a shortlist of top affiliate programs in digital marketing. I use these in some of my own businesses and with my clients. Every offer in the shortlist meets three criteria:
- Profitable commission payouts,
- Long-lasting cookies
- Proven ability to convert.
Today, I’ll share 11 top entries from my shortlist with you. Use these to give your audience something they’ll benefit from using – and create additional revenue streams in the process. We’ll start by looking at…
MARKETING COURSES
Digital marketing is a fast-moving industry, so marketers always need up-to-date courses; webinars; e-books. Here are some of the best (and most profitable) ones on the net.
1. Authority Hacker
Commission – up to $990 per product purchased.
Cookies – up to 6 months.
Authority Hacker is an affiliate marketing business run by two SEO veterans: Mark Webster and Gael Breton. It has 2 programs: an entry-level one that costs $600+, and an advanced one that goes for $2,500.
Mark and Gael are well-respected in the affiliate marketing space. Their products are in-depth, actionable, and fluff-free. They’ve sold over 10,000 Authority Hacker courses to date, so they have a strong track record of converting traffic on their website.
Commissions go up to $990 per product purchased, with an impressive proven Earnings Per Click (EPC) figure of $10+. It helps that since Gael and Mark are marketing experts, their landing page converts incredibly well.
Authority Hacker products are perfect for two types of audiences. First, people who are looking for new startup business ideas. Second, anyone who is into affiliate marketing, SEO, ecommerce, or all of the above. If you fall into one of these categories, you’re going to love AH and its products.
Next on our list is…
2. Digital Marketer
Commission – 30% recurring for as long as a customer stays on.
Cookie life: 120 days.
Digital Marketer (DM) is a marketing education platform run by Ryan Deiss: #1 NY Times best-selling author, founder of the Traffic & Conversions Summit, and marketing mega-influencer.
Digital Marketer’s courses run the gamut, teaching marketers copywriting, conversion optimization, and content strategy among other things. Each course is full of in-depth content taught by some of the top experts in online marketing, including Ryan Deiss himself.
DM’s products are available as one-off trainings, individual subscriptions, and team subscriptions. This makes the commission scheme – a recurring 30% for each customer referred – very lucrative.
What I really like about DM, though, is the number of courses available. There’s something for entrepreneurs, marketers, managers, programmers, and more. So long as your audience wants to learn more about marketing, you can find a product for them.
3. CXL Institute Affiliate Program
Commission – 30-50% of purchase price
Cookie life – 30 days
CXL Institute teaches growth marketing and adjacent fields. Its instructors include some of the top marketers in the world, including founder Peep Laja. Its 50+ courses cover a wide range of topics including CRO, growth hacking, and copywriting.
Where Digital Marketer is a one-size-fits-all learning environment, CXL is more specialized. The course caters more to those looking for careers in conversion optimization and conversion-focused aspects of digital marketing. It’s also an excellent course for e-commerce business owners, marketers looking to scale SaaS startups, and growth hackers, among others.
This means you can market CXL alongside programs like Digital Marketer and Authority Hacker without cannibalizing sales.
One bad thing about CXL is that they only pay you on someone’s initial purchase. The 50% maximum commission rate makes up for this somewhat, but if you can drive traffic that opts into multi-year subscriptions, you’re going to lose money as a result.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TOOLS
Social media marketing plays a huge role in attracting leads and converting them into paying customers. However, managing social media accounts, let alone campaigns is a time-consuming task. That’s why brands are on the lookout for great social media management tools. And that’s why social media marketing tools make for good affiliate marketing programs that can increase your income in 2021/2022.
4. Crowdfire
Commission – 35% of all payments for the first year.
Crowdfire is a social media marketing tool for businesses or individuals to increase their social media presence. It makes it easy for social media managers to create and share posts and engage with your audience on all social media platforms. And they can do it all from a single dashboard.
One of the best features of Crowdfire is that you can create tailored posts for each social media platform you’re targeting. This makes for more personalized messaging and thus encourages higher engagement rates. Of course, this makes Crowdfire a social media marketing tool that sells fast. And with plans selling for as much as $99.99/month, Crowdfire is a hot seller that can net you as much as $420 per customer/year.
ON-SITE MARKETING TOOLS
Digital marketing requires tools like website builders, keyword tools, funnel editors, and more. Here are some of the best affiliate offers for the most common tool types.
5. Clickfunnels
Commission – up to 40% recurring
Cookie life- 30 days
ClickFunnels is a funnel builder made by another digital marketing legend: Russel Brunson. Russel got his start in marketing as a teen, so he understands the industry in and out – and his affiliate program reflects that.
Let’s start with the product. ClickFunnels is the best funnel builder available to the general public. It’s responsive and mobile-ready; it’s fun and easy to use; it’s inexpensive, starting at just $97/month. All of this makes CF easy to market.
The affiliate program is strong too. You get 20-40% commission in perpetuity, which adds up to $4,000+/month after about 100 referrals. Driving traffic to CF’s educational products – 30 Days and OFA courses – gets you $100 per conversion. If you can become one of the top affiliates for CF, they even help you buy your dream car!
Something I really like about the ClickFunnels affiliate program is all the offers and lead magnets you can drive traffic to. Between the dozens of banners, ad templates, email templates, and other bits and pieces you get, working with the brand is easy.
The only downside to CF is that the core product is a straight funnel builder. This makes it too fancy for some users (who only want simple landing-page websites) and too simple for others (who want full websites).
6. Leadpages
Commission – 10-50% recurring
Cookie life – 30 days
LeadPages is a landing page builder that can also be used to build simple funnels and websites. It offers incredibly attractive commission rates for active affiliates. For example, if you drive over $50 in new customer sales each month, you get a 40% commission.
LeadPages’ strong suit is its massive library of templates. You won’t find a better collection of done-for-you opt-in boxes, landing pages, etc anywhere. Between this and the service’s low price point, LP is perfect for audiences that want to build a list quickly and easily.
Something you do want to remember is that Leadpages is not an attractive affiliate program if you’re not going to send traffic their way regularly. If you don’t send any new sales their way each month, you only get a payout of 10% – which isn’t worth the effort to most affiliates.
7. SEMrush
Commission – 100% on first-time transactions, 5% on sales to existing customers
Cookie life – 30 days
SEMrush is one of the most popular SEO and Search trend platforms in the world. It’s used by 6 million individuals and businesses, including every 4th Fortune 500 company. The name of the brand alone is enough to convert a lot of traffic immediately.
Another strong drawing point is the technology itself. The core SEO tool is strong, with reliable, up-to-date information available at all times. In addition to this tool, there are 40+ auxiliary tools for all kinds of digital marketing use cases.
What I like about SEMrush is that the brand does a lot to help you win as an affiliate. Their account managers are always on hand, and since they’re all experienced salespeople, they can give you the insights you need to succeed with them.
Another strength is the quality and quantity of promo materials. You get SEMrush banners, special URLs (for high-volume affiliates), custom landing pages, and a whole lot more. Between this and the strong support team, you’re given everything you need to convert well and at scale here.
OUTBOUND MARKETING TOOLS
Email is arguably the most profitable marketing channel, with ROIs of as much as 3,800%. This makes outbound marketing tools – email and similar – some of the most important and profitable for affiliate marketers and their audiences.
8. Convertkit
Commission – 30% recurring
Cookie life – 30 days
ConvertKit is a combo tool that gives its users landing pages, forms, autoresponder campaign sequences, and more. It’s different from the other tools on this list in that a single affiliate can bring you lots of money, with monthly fees of up to $2,000+.
ConvertKit is perfect for two kinds of audiences. First, creators of all walks. ConvertKit is a marketing swiss knife, which means it can help creatives and skilled workers who want a comprehensive way to promote themselves.
Beyond this, ConvertKit converts very well with people who are already using other, less excellent tools of the same kind. So if you have a list of email marketers, some of them will likely be happy to opt into ConvertKit.
Between the above and the high 30% recurring commission, ConvertKit is another one of my go-to affiliate programs. So is…
9. Sendinblue
Commission – €5 per free account, €100 per paying subscriber
Cookie life – 90 days
Sendinblue offers a different kind of affiliate program, wherein you get paid a flat fee as opposed to a percentage. The bonus for a paying subscriber, at 100 euros, is generous – and if you can consistently drive paying subscribers, it quickly adds up to a lot of money.
The product itself is another combo tool with email, SMS, chat, and other marketing. It’s already got 175,000+ users, and it’s growing quickly. In my opinion, it’s one of the absolute best products in its class – which is the main reason it’s included on the list.
Something I like about Sendinblue is that it has a free membership plan. You can get people to join for free, then get your €100 later down the line. This is a rare chance to send out a softball offer and get hundreds or thousands of dollars per month anyway, which is great.
10. Getresponse
Commission – 33% recurring
Cookie life – 120 days
GetResponse is one of the best-known email services for businesses, but now it also has landing pages and opt-in forms (like the 2 services above).
One major draw for GetResponse is the brand name. The bigger and more respected a service, the better it tends to convert for affiliates. Since GetResponse is such an old and storied email brand, it tends to convert well no matter where you’re driving traffic from.
Another draw is that GetResponse has a quality core product. It’s an advanced email editor that can instantly process email blasts with tens of thousands of subscribers. This, plus the extra features – funnels, pages, marketing automation – are all exciting and valuable to users.
If you’re not happy with the (generous) $33% recurring commission, you can get a once-off $135 per sale made through CJ Affiliate. The one thing to bear in mind is that if you go this way, your cookies will only last 30 days instead of 120.
MARKETING OUTSOURCING
Sooner or later, every marketer needs to hand off some of their tasks – logo design, copywriting, website code – to a capable freelancer. The good news is, you can get a slice of that pie as an affiliate thanks to…
11. Fiverr
Commission – $15-150 per sale or $10 + 10% commission depending on commission plan
Cookie life – 30 days
Digital Marketers always need logos, copy snippets, articles, etc. An excellent place to find all this stuff is Fiverr. I often use the platform for gigs I need for my own business, and I feel the price-quality you get with the service is among the best on the web.
If you want to drive traffic to offers for logo creation, article writing, programming, automation, or anything beyond that, Fiverr should be your go-to platform. They have 2 basic commission rates: either $15-150 per sale or $10+10% commission.
In addition to the core Fiverr offer, the company has auxiliary services – like Fiverr Learn and Fiverr Business – that you can market to make even more money. If you’re looking for one partner you can market numerous services with, Fiverr’s a good choice.
Time to Add More Affiliate Marketing Revenue with the Best Affiliate Programs of 2021/2
Between these 11 offers, you should be able to monetize all kinds of audiences effectively. The offers convert well, pay well and have cookies that stick for weeks and even months.
The one piece of advice I have is to keep offers timely and relevant. So for example, if your audience is full of email marketers, they’ll like the outbound tools I suggest above. If you’re telling your audience how convenient outsourcing is, Fiverr is a good offer to promote.
Most importantly, always market brands and products you believe in. Never market anything just because I, or anyone else, told you it’s good! Thank you for reading – and I hope you found this blog post helpful.
About the author
Hanson Cheng is the founder of Freedom to Ascend. He empowers online entrepreneurs and business owners to 10x their business and become financially independent. You can connect with him here.
One comment