Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize your social media, especially when you don’t sell products or services. Joining an affiliate program can get you exclusive access to new content and special deals for your audience — all while earning you more money and freebies.

There are many types of affiliate programs, ranging from online courses to website builders to marketing and business affiliates. Here, we’re going to explore the best affiliate programs with the highest earning potential to ensure you can make money off the content you provide.

What is an affiliate program?

An affiliate program is an agreement in which a business pays a influencer or customer (‘affiliate’) a commission for sending sales their way. This can be achieved through web content, social media, or a product integration.

The affiliate gets a unique link (an “affiliate link”) from which clicks can be tracked or a coupon code. If the link or the coupon is used to make a purchase, then the affiliate will earn a comission.

If you’re interested in starting an affiliate program, there are different types of affiliate programs, and you’ll want to pick the one best-suited for your business.

Types of affiliate programs

If you’re looking to promote your products or services, there are a few affiliate programs you can consider. When choosing an affiliate program, you’ll want to keep in mind where your audience spends the majority of their time. For instance, does your buyer persona typically uses social media, or use search engines when researching new products?

Alternatively, is your buyer persona someone who’s always looking for a good deal, and would appreciate a link on a coupon site? Or are they more interested in doing tons of research before purchasing, making your promotion efforts more worthwhile on a review site?

Search Affiliates

With this program, you’ll have freelancers or entrepreneurs pay their own money to promote your offer on search results or other online advertising platforms like Facebook Advertising. While you’ll want to ensure your partner is following search and advertising guidelines, this could work in your favor if your partner has an SEO background and wants to A/B test to see which ads result in the most referrals for you — and most ROI for them.

Influencers

If there are social media influencers in your industry who engage with your ideal buyer persona on a regular basis, you might consider partnering with them. For instance, if you sell kitchen appliances, it might be good to reach out to YouTube influencers who post recipes, and ask if they’d feature your product as a “recommended tool” in their next recipe post. Ideally, this would result in your target audience taking a look at your website, and if they like the products you offer, could provide additional revenue for the influencer.

Customers

Customer advocacy is a type of advocacy marketing that encourages customers to share and create content and leave company reviews in order to drive more awareness and sales. 

Inspiring people to continually advocate for you is a really “simple” formula:

1. Give them something they want or value.
2. Offer them a variety of ways to advocate.
3. Recognize and compensate them when they advocate for you.

Advocate marketing works best when you develop a formal system for discovering, nurturing and mobilizing your potential advocates.

Review Sites

If you offer a product or service that is more expensive or niche, it’s likely that most of your buyers need to conduct research on that topic before purchasing. If that’s the case, it might be a good idea to research the top review sites related to your product or service. Reach out to the business or writer who published the piece, asking whether they’d be interested in providing an affiliate link to your product or service in the text.

Coupon Sites

If you’re offering a new product or service that isn’t popular in the marketplace, you might try creating an affiliate partnership with a coupon site for a limited time. While you don’t want to lose money by giving your product away at a discount, it could be effective at getting some first-time buyers to check out your website and become brand advocates.

Websites for Affiliates

#1 VoxFeed

VoxFeed is a free social media influencer platform that connects brands with content creators, nano-influencers, micro-influencers and macro-influencers. It is free to access and allows brands to meet, interact, build campaigns, pay and measure results. Everything is done from the platform in an easy, agile and secure way. 

You’ll find a lot of brands that are running their affiliate programs on VoxFeed. The key is to be sure about the brand, type of product or service you want to collaborate with. Obviously you will have to engage with brands and companies that have to do with your profile (blog, web and social media). This is so that other users and brands recognize you as a specialized content creator in that sector.