What is the Best Affiliate Program to Join?

I see this question asked a lot by those new to affiliate marketing, so I want to address it. First, this is not the best question to ask as there is no single “best” affiliate program to join. The question to ask is “what is the best one for YOU to join?” I am not playing with words; they are two totally different questions. The reason is that everyone comes to affiliate marketing with a different set of experience, skills, and backgrounds, so what is a great program for one may not be a great fit for someone else. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you get started in affiliate marketing to identify the types of products and companies you want to promote as an affiliate:

• What Am I An Expert At? If you are an expert, you can start a website or blog about your topic of expertise and then monetize it via affiliate offers. The best affiliate offers for youare going to be the ones offered by companies that solve problems for your specific audience.
• What Am I Passionate About? Similarly, when we are passion driven, we can generate content pretty easily and when we generate content, we can attract website visitors interested in our content. When we attract targeted website visitors, those visitors end up being customers through our affiliate offerings.

Once you have answered these questions, you now know the industries in which you want to find affiliate offers. From there, now you can look at the specific program and ask the following questions to identify the best affiliate programs to join based on your goals:

• Is the Company a Part of an Affiliate Network? To me, this is important because companies that are a part of affiliate networks usually pay consistently.
• How Much Does The Company Pay Per Transaction? If you are doing the work to make the sale, you might as well make the most money.
• Is the Company Reputable? Remember, your reputation is on the line when you link to an affiliate offer. I have actually had people care enough to inform me that I was once offering something that was not in line with my brands reputation. Admittedly, it was early on in my affiliate career, so I was doing something foolish and that was recommending a digital product that I had not read. I quickly ended the relationship and advised my community… all was good again. If you are starting out and this happens, you may not be able to recover. Thankfully, I had built a solid following in a community by sharing my expertise, so my community trusted me.
• Does The Company Pay for Future Business? Some companies will pay you for the life of the customer, which is nice. Some companies that offer monthly services actually pay residual commissions for the life of the customer; those are nice!
• Does The Company Provide Resources? Good companies will offer banners, email copy, and an affiliate manager who can offer helpful tips in promoting their products as an affiliate.

I hope you have found this helpful on your journey to find the best affiliate program for YOU!