5 Affiliate Marketing Networks New Bloggers Can Easily Join
How I make money through affiliate marketing as a newbie Lifestyle blogger!
Jillian uses affiliate links in this post, meaning she may get a commission for any purchases made using these links. Commissions from affiliate marketing go towards keeping this site active. For more information, please see her Privacy and Disclosure Policies page.
Celebrating my first full year as a blogger! I have made over $1000 on my blog in less than a year. See my first annual income report here! Many bloggers make money off their blog by selling courses, products, coaching other bloggers, publishing sponsored content, and more. For now, I simply use Ads and Affiliate Marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is when you use links and banners from stores or brands in your posts to promote that store or brand. If any readers click on your links or banners and make a purchase, you may earn a small commission. Many stores and brands have affiliate programs bloggers can join. Some brands have their own independent affiliate program you can join by going through the brand itself, like “Amazon Associates” or Siteground. I joined a few affiliate programs that are independent, but most of mine are through an affiliate marketing network.
What is an Affiliate Marketing Network?
Affiliate marketing networks act as a third party that allows a blogger to easily apply for and keep track of affiliate programs. They are the link between advertisers and publisher(blogger) or influencer. You can join many affiliate programs by going through an affiliate marketing network. I found them easy to get into starting out as a new blogger with low traffic. Here are some favorite affiliate marketing networks of mine, also favorited by many other newbie bloggers.
My Favorite Affiliate Marketing Networks
Rakuten Marketing (formerly Linkshare)
This is my favorite affiliate marketing network hands down! Their layout is the easiest to understand. As soon as you login you are shown a big chart of your views/sales/commissions clearly separating each program. This allows you to easily see from exactly which brand each click and commission is coming from, plus running even more detailed reports is easy on this network. This is also the network whose programs I had joined allowed me my first $1000 month for my blog this past February. It is also the easiest to make or find links and banners.
Impact
Another network with a clear layout is Impact. I appreciate how easy it is to find product links and ads, and that a deep linking tool shows up on your home page as soon as you login.
CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction)
Not as easy to find reports, and does not always show you sales right away in your chart of clicks and commissions, but still good overall. This one offered the most programs from brands I was interested in joining.
shareasale.com
Many Bloggers recommend this, and it seems okay to me though I did not have much luck joining the affiliate programs that I tried. I was also a super newbie back when I joined this as my first network when I first started my blog. Maybe I would have better luck now?
Awin.com
Not a big fan since half the time their home site will not even load for me to try to login, but do like the layout. Not as many programs available to join as some of the other networks, but easy to make reports of transactions and other activities.
Bonus: Shopstyle Collective
Even though it is considered an affiliate marketing network, it seems to be more about promoting actual products (especially fashion.) It looks confusing at first, but it does let you make links and product ads to place on your site. They used to be pay-per-click, but there is now an option to join to make commissions off sales. I have not used this a ton, but they make it easy to create pins, tweets, and widgets of products. Fashion bloggers especially love this.
There are a few more good ones out there, but these are what I was easily able to start with as a new blogger. Make sure before you apply that you have a good email for the network and each program to send updates to. Also, it is more likely you will be accepted by a program on the first try if you already have a few posts already published on your blog. Hope this helps any other newbies out there! Good luck!
Thanks for reading!
Jillian
Hi Jillian,
I want to ask you a affiliate marketing related question. i am an new blogger, almost a year back i started two blogs that i worked hard on and no i have a good number of following and traffic built that it feels like i should start putting affiliate links of products and i might just make some sales.
BUT the thing is i don’t know what company’s program i should join. Here in UK there is this company that is offer good deal of commission and everything that is required to achieve that startup that i am looking for but review is required.
I’ll try to address you to the list revglue(.)com/free-wordpress-plugins maybe you can help me out decide or maybe suggest me something else if you can.
Anyway appreciated.
Another route to try is think of the brands or products you regularly buy and love, and apply to be an affiliate directly with them. Most bigger brands and even some smaller ones will have info on how to become an affiliate in their menu at the bottom of their website. Some have their own program so you do not have to apply and go through a third party.
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