You already know that affiliate marketing is one of the easy and profitable ways to make money online. Infact,  Statista reported that spending on affiliate marketing only in the U.S. is expected to rise to $8.2 billion by 2022.

Thus there is definitely a space to grow and earn. And we believe that even more then we see examples of super-affiliates publicly sharings their income reports and telling their success stories. Here are some facts to inspire you.

• Well-known affiliate marketer Pat Flynn grew his affiliate business from $8000 to $100.000 per month;
• Tom from Onlinemediamasters went from $20k to $150k of annual income over two years;
• Doug Cunnington made $70k in 2017 from just one niche website.

Those are really impressive numbers, however, after some months spent with no earnings or just small ones, people become more impatient and skeptical. Some lose hope and give up; the others start looking for questions, ways how to earn more. Because yet they are far from the desired sums. So, what’s the real affiliate earning?

• How Much Can You Earn From Affiliate Marketing
• Can You Become a Millionaire From Affiliate Marketing?
• What Are The Most Profitable Affiliate Programs?
• How Can You Succeed in Affiliate Marketing?
• How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing in 2021

How Much Can You Earn From Affiliate Marketing

Recently STM forum conducted a poll where they asked about affiliates’ annual income. And you can see the results in the chart below:

Broadly speaking, this chart must give you a vision that income in affiliate marketing can vary a lot. You can see there are plenty of bloggers and affiliate marketers out there who earn less than $20.000 ($1.600 per month).

• Total beginners, who are only losing money at the moment;
• Low-level affiliates, who earn up to $300/day;
• Intermediate affiliates, who earn from $300/day up to $3,000/day;
• High-level affiliates, who earn above $3,000/day;
• Super affiliates or, as you can often find them being called, “gurus of affiliate marketing,” who make more than $10,000/day.

Success in affiliate marketing is about persistence and continuing nature. You can’t assume that your profit will always be the same if you once earned 300$ per day.

Read Also: Make Money Online With This Affiliate Marketing Tips

In Affiliate marketing, there are plenty of cases when, after earning somewhat a very modest income for a long time, people skyrocketed overnight. It is all about choosing the right niche and the right strategy. And there are plenty of opposite cases when affiliate marketers went from high incomes to sod.

Affiliate commissions in different niches, just to name a few:

Not only do affiliate conditions vary in different niches, you won’t likely find similar conditions and peculiarities applied to affiliate programs within a specific niche Here are just a few of affiliate niches with examples of affiliate earning:

• Software affiliate programs

Should you wonder about the most profitable affiliate programs, then look into the direction of software and web hosting providers. Here the commission may be up to 30% on each payment. And in the software niche, the check size is obviously big. But surely, there’s a flip side to that coin. Being one of the most attractive, it is also one of the most competitive. Probably not for a total beginner.

• Travel affiliate programs

In the travel niche, most affiliates get their income from travel agencies, airlines, booking aggregators, reviews sites, and travel goods. For example, from the airport transfers you can earn around $7-10 on the transfer price or from 20 skip-a-line tickets to La Sagrada Família in Barcelona, you will earn around $70. The commission rate and total income depends on the niche you work in. For instance:

•  Flight tickets: 1-3% commission on the total order value in JetRadar, KAYAK, Kiwi.com and other flight affiliate programs.
• Accommodation: 3-12% commission on the total order value in Booking.com, Agoda, Hostelworld and other hotel affiliate programs.
• Tours and activities: 3-7% commission on the total order value in GetYourGuide, Klook, Viator and other programs.
• Car rentals: 4-15% commission on the total order value in DiscoverCars, RentalCars, AutoEurope and other car rental affiliate programs. You can join the major travel affiliate programs, such as Booking.com, GetYourGuide and over 60 others in the Travelpayouts affiliate network. 

Bear in mind that the competition in the travel niche is fierce but still lower than in e-commerce or dating.

• E-Commerce affiliate programs

In eCommerce, you need to have a big audience to earn a decent income. Let’s take an example of Amazon, where you can earn from 4% to 8.5% commission on sales. But as all these are mainly B2C sales, where the check amount is comparatively low. But with a big audience and enough effort you can earn at least $1,000 with near 20-40 hours of monthly work.

• Dating affiliate programs

In the Dating niche, affiliate commissions may look like this: up to $12 per lead, up to 5$ for referral commission, and up to $500 for the first order. If an affiliate program has a loyalty (bonus) program, your commission can increase after a certain amount of sign-ups.

• Loans affiliate programs

Loans form a niche where companies are fiercely competing for clients, and you can earn a decent income from this affiliate niche as well. According to High Paying Affiliate Programs Loans affiliate programs, affiliate marketers can earn from $1 up to $5000 depending on loan size.

• Fitness and Nutra affiliate programs

The topic of a healthy lifestyle has been one of the most-talked-about for quite a while. And it’s continuously growing. Promoting fitness and health products, you can earn up to 15-40% commission from every supplement sale.

Can You Become a Millionaire From Affiliate Marketing?

The answer is also simple. People have done it and people continue to do it, so it must be possible to become a millionaire through affiliate marketing. The real question, however, is whether it is an easy process or not. The answer is, as you might have guessed, no.

Put bluntly, if you want to make big money through affiliate marketing (e.g. $500,000 per year like Super Affiliate author Rosalind Gardner), you will have to work hard. Hard work alone won’t cut it though. You need to either be educated in SEO and web design or you need to be smart enough, and simultaneously humble enough, to learn from mistakes and make the most of them. Here is some insight into how others have made good money with affiliate marketing as well as insight into how you can do the same.

It Won’t Happen Overnight

If you want to make real money with affiliate marketing, then set aside the idea that it is a get-rich-quick scheme. Affiliate marketing will only lead to immediate riches if you cheat and that, eventually, can lead to fines or jail time. If you want to make money at affiliate marketing and sustain that income over the years, then you have to do it right and that takes time.

Keep It Simple

One of the biggest mistakes that affiliate marketers make is to try to do too much at once. They try to create dozens of websites to promote oodles of products and then they wonder why they feel overwhelmed. Taking on too much, especially in the beginning, is a recipe for disaster.

Start your affiliate marketing career by choosing a handful (maybe half a dozen) of products that you are interested in, that you feel you can learn about, and that you can market confidently. If you know a lot about microwave ovens, for instance, then you should look for an affiliate program in that niche and avoid, say, conventional ovens.

Of course, that’s a silly example, but the point remains. Focus your efforts on a few great products and a few great websites to promote them.

Choose Good Programs

In the past, every affiliate marketing program was a good one. Today, there are a lot of scams and schemes being touted as affiliate marketing. Many times you can make money with these risky programs, but they make it hard by taking large percentages, paying small commissions, and asking for an investment upfront.

Ironically, the best affiliate programs that are most likely to make you wealthy are the programs that don’t claim to be able to make you rich.

To find a good program, start first with companies that are large and trusted. They generally offer lower commissions, but that is because they actually pay their commissions. Once you know which programs are interesting, scour the web to find out if they actually pay.

You don’t want to put in the work, over months usually, just to find out that the company won’t pay. Finally, make sure that the program has a support system in place.

The best programs should not only be in touch when you first sign up, but they should also email you when you make sales, keep you up to date about earnings, and be available for problem-solving and troubleshooting.

What Are The Most Profitable Affiliate Programs?

1. ClickFunnels Affiliate Program

Want to have your dream car paid for? Simply refer 100 customers to ClickFunnels and your new car could arrive sooner than you think.

As an affiliate, you also have the ability to earn huge recurring commissions on all of their top-level products and services. The ClickFunnels Affiliate Program offers a generous 40% recurring commissions on all sales you send their way. On a starter plan that equates to $38.80 every month (MRR*), per customer, for life!

2. Fiverr Affiliate Program

Promote the world’s largest marketplace for digital services – Fiverr. From whiteboard explainer videos to WordPress and logo design, earn up to $150 for every first-time buyer with their dynamic CPA model. Get paid to drive traffic, it’s that easy.

With over 3 million digital services available, 250 unique categories and a gig purchased every 4-seconds, anyone can easily find a relevant service to promote from Fiverr’s marketplace.

Maximize your affiliate potential with Fiverr’s new stores for affiliates.As an affiliate, there are some things you do the best. You might be the best content writer, the best marketer, or the best videographer in your industry, but… there are some tasks you clearly struggle with.

You may need help developing creative copy for Facebook posts or crafting that unique thumbnail image to increase clicks on Youtube, the list goes on and on.

To save you time and increase your affiliate success, Fiverr has created the ultimate set of stores to support your affiliate efforts with premier talent. Those stores include the most relevant and best-performing gigs from their top sellers in variety of categories: Web or Blog, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

3. Transferwise Affiliate Program

TransferWise helps people send and receive money – internationally and locally – at a mid-market exchange rate and low fees. It offers a multi-currency account with a debit card that allows you to send, spend and receive money internationally, covering over 80 countries and currencies. With 8 million customers, TransferWise helps people save over a billion dollars in fees every year. 

It’s perfect for expats, travellers, freelancers, and businesses working internationally. If you have anyone who needs to send or spend money abroad in your audience, then this affiliate program is for you!

The commission is based on performance, there is always an opportunity to earn more the more customers you bring. The program does not have a cookie period limit, which means that you will earn money on every single user no matter how long it takes them to convert.

4. Shopify Affiliate Program

Earn 200% commission based on the price of the subscription your referral signs up to. Shopify is one of the most well-known eCommerce platforms, website builders and point of sales software providers in the the world. Earn an average of $58 for each paid signup who uses your unique referral link, and $2000 for each Plus referral.

5. LiveChat Partner Program

LiveChat offer a 20% recurring commission for as long as your referral remains a customer. It’s free to sign up and payments are made monthly. LiveChat is an online chat and help desk software used by over 26,000 businesses across 150 countries.

6. Wealthy Affiliate Program

Turn your passion into a thriving online business with Wealthy Affiliates. Simply follow their proven process easy to use tools to launch a website, attract visitors, and most importantly, earn revenue. 

Wealthy Affiliate was created by Kyle and Carson, who in 2005, launched the Wealthy Affiliate platform to help other people succeed online. Since then the Wealthy Affiliate community has grown to over 800,000 internet entrepreneurs. 

Launch your online business, then make money sharing your secret with others. Wealthy Affiliate has one of the most engaging affiliate programs available online — earn consistent revenue by simply referring others to the community. Average commission $100 per premium signup.

7. Media.net

Tap into one of the largest pools of advertisers in the world and let Media.net ads maximize your monetization. Monetize every single impression by seamlessly with Contextual ads, Display ads, and customizable Native ads- no additional coding required. Plus, join their ambassador program to earn 10% commission on all referral earnings for the first 12 months.

8. Kinsta Wordpress Hosting

Kinsta takes managed WordPress hosting and performance to a new level. Powered by Google Cloud Platform and their premium tier network, WordPress users can choose from 20 global data centers and access to the fastest network on the planet. They host all types of sites, from small blogs all the way up to high traffic enterprises.

Kinsta’s affiliate program is one of the best and most beneficial in the hosting industry. After each referral they offer a one-time sign up bonus up to $500.

Additionally, there is a lifetime recurring commission of 10%. The cherry on the cake is their custom-made affiliate dashboard which allows real-time tracking of subscriptions, analytics, payments and much more.

9. Thrive Themes

Thrive Themes is a simple-to-use suite of WordPress website tools. From conversion-focused WordPress Themes to lead generating plugins, Thrive Themes was built from the ground up to make your entire website convert more of your visitors into subscribers, customers & clients!​

Start promoting products that your audience will love! Earn 35% of each Thrive Themes sale, plus 25% for recurring commissions.

10. ShareASale Network

ShareASale is a large network offering a lot of options for your affiliate promotions. They also have about 1,000 merchants solely listing their affiliate programs through ShareASale meaning you can only access them through this network.

How Can You Succeed in Affiliate Marketing?

If you are just starting out or have been doing affiliate marketing for some time, following these easy steps will help improve your chances of success. Each tip gives insight into the methods used by the most successful marketers in the industry.

Create solid content

If you expect to make extra income from affiliate marketing, you will need to create quality content. Content is in every piece of communication you use. You will need knowledge of calls to action both informational, as well as transactional, and the ability to write in a broadly readable way.

You also need to make your content reader-centric. Answer their questions, provide them with detailed information, but written in a way that is accessible and engaging.

Know your audience, look at what brings them to your website. A search box is an excellent way to learn what they want to find on your site. Write, write, write. Commit to creating regular content.

Track your affiliate marketing success

Ongoing success needs insights as to what has worked in the past. While you do not want to set it and forget it – knowing how visitors engage with your site is important. Obviously, search ranking will have an impact, as will social sharing, etc.

You need to use your visitor analytics to learn more about your visitors. What percentage are new versus returning visitors? What pages get the majority of your traffic? What links in your navigation bar and other places on each page get clicked? All these questions will provide answers that you can use to improve and add actions.

Where is your converting traffic coming from? What pages are visited most before a conversion? Use your analytics to get answers you can use to determine what new content is needed or even where to place certain links on existing pages. Use your data!

Know your products

Knowledge can distinguish you from your competitors. As an affiliate you are making recommendations to your visitors of various products, so to stand out you need to be seen as an expert, or at least a place to get detailed information about the products you promote.

Too often affiliates grab a few vendors they think will be of interest to their visitors without getting to know them. Even if you are not providing reviews of these products, you still want to know how they work and what benefits they can provide users.

Don’t sign up with a new vendor just because they appear to offer something in your niche – do your research. Look at the reviews others have done to start, but try and use it yourself, even if it is just the demo.

Engage your visitors

Most successful affiliate marketers talk to their visitors. If you have a blog, allow comments. This will provide you with the opportunity to have a conversation with your visitors. Yes, you will need to filter out the spam, but if you reply to most of your commenters and start dialogues, they will return to continue the conversation.

Ask questions at the end of a blog post. “What other factors should be included?” “Would you like more information on this topic?” “Tell us your opinion!” These calls to action will help foster community interaction. When replying, use the commenters name wherever possible.

The more your visitors come to see your site as a community of like-minded people, the more they will return and increase your conversions.

Too often affiliate marketers use a shotgun approach, getting as many products as possible to push when they should be focusing on their main interest and niche-related products.

If you want to develop a successful affiliate marketing site, always stick to one niche. You can create other sites to promote other niches, but don’t spread yourself too thin, because that will lead to thin content sites.

Provide information and help, rather than sell

Blatant sales and self-promotion sites never gain traction. You need to help your visitors and provide quality information they find useful so that they keep coming back.

If you look at the sites that rank well for the various terms used in your niche, you will find that useful information wins out. Do your research and provide more details or updated information.

Always be testing and improving

You should always be trying to improve your process. Test length, use of schema, different art, and other factors. Affiliate marketing, like any learning process, is an ongoing effort. While many of the steps above can be implemented at the start, you want to learn and improve as you go.

Dedicate the time

To become successful you need to put the time in. Affiliate marketing requires an ongoing effort, so be prepared and allocate regular time for your efforts.

Set proper expectations

You are not going to make a million dollars in a month. You need to set realistic expectations. Many affiliates spend a set amount of time to build out their original sites then commit to a smaller amount to keep adding content while starting a new site.

Read Also: Quick Tips on How To Make Money Online With Google Adsense Program

Whether you have a single site with concentrated ongoing development or a number of initially smaller sites, set goals and work towards accomplishing them.

How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing in 2021

1. Choose your niche

This is certainly one of the most critical steps for success in affiliate marketing. If you choose a niche that’s too large, there’s likely to be too much competition for success to come easily. Choose a niche that’s too small and you’ll never have enough customers to be really profitable. 

Tips for choosing a niche:

• Sell solutions. What is a common challenge that many people have that you know how to solve? If you’re familiar with the dilemma, it will be easier to market products that offer a solution.
• Cater to cherished hobbies. What topics are you knowledgeable about that many are fanatical about? Promote products related to popular hobbies and activities.
• Meet an emotional need. What are people afraid of? Most of us are afraid of being alone, missing out on the good things in life, or not being successful. Sell a product that resolves those fears.
• The three most successful niches tend to be love, money, and health. Narrow one of these broad topics down to a sub-topic. For example, in the love niche, sub-topics can include getting back your “ex,” finding “the one,” dating success, and many more. You can narrow it even further by catering to one gender.

2. Find your keywords

Spend some time researching good keywords in your niche. The Google Ads Keyword Tool is one of the most popular methods of discovering popular keywords that people use when looking for information or products in your niche.

•  What you’re looking for is a keyword related to your niche that is getting a significant number of searches, but for which there is not too much competition. The Google keyword tool is pretty self-explanatory when it comes to these numbers. A good minimum is 1,500 searches per month.
• Your keywords will be the cornerstone of your marketing plans. All of your marketing efforts will revolve around these keywords.

3. Choose a product

There are several affiliate network sites, but ClickBank is certainly the largest. Also, take a look at CJ Affiliate. Obviously, you want to consider how much you will earn per sale, but that’s not the only important detail.

• Take a look at the sales page. How does it look to you? Does the sales page peak your interest and make you want to buy the product? If you wouldn’t buy it, you shouldn’t expect anyone else to either. Ensure the sales page looks professional.
• Does the product have a guarantee or a warranty? How good is it? Would you be wary of buying this product with the guarantee or warranty that is provided?
• Perhaps most importantly: is this a product that people in your niche would be willing to spend money on? 

4. Get a domain name

Your domain name also contributes to your sales success. This is the first place your keyword will come into play.

• Include your keyword in your domain name. For example, if your keyword was “lose 60 pounds in 60 days,” your domain name could be “lose60poundsin60days.com.” It’s very likely that the domain name you want won’t be available, but there are ways around this issue.
• For example, the domain name “lose60poundsin60daysnow.com” might work for you. Or perhaps, “lose60poundsin60dayseasily.com” would work well too. Just try to be sure that your keyword comes first in your domain name. Add anything extra at the end.
• Most studies have shown that .com endings are best. Most top affiliate marketers avoid other suffixes, with the exceptions of .net and .org.
• There are many places to register domain names. Bluehost is the most popular.

5. Build a website

The easiest way to a full-blown website is by using WordPress software. You can get it free at WordPress.org and look over the tutorials about how to upload the software to your hosting. Many hosting companies also have “1 click” installation for WordPress.

• Post content on your site every day for the first couple of weeks, and then 2 or 3 times a week thereafter. This will keep your readers and the search engines coming back for more.
• Put a newsletter sign up form on your website and communicate with your subscribers regularly. Your subscribers are your list and your list is like Gold. Cultivate a relationship with them and they’ll buy from you time and time again. A popular autoresponder service is Aweber, and there are many more as well.

6. Create lots of Backlinks

One way to make your website more relevant is to create a lot of Backlinks. These are links that point back to your website. Search engines place a high value on these.

• One good strategy to Create Backlinks and gain some readers is by writing articles and posting them at article directories. These articles will contain a short bio with a link to your website for promotion.
• Other ways to create Backlinks include posting on forums, posting on blogs, and registering your website with the numerous website directories. Don’t forget to create a Facebook page and Twitter account. Utilize websites like HubPages Inc as well.

7. Keep repeating the process

One website and one product to promote are unlikely to create a large amount of income. It will be necessary to promote several products, each with their own corresponding website. You can stay within the same niche or you can use a new niche each time.

• Once you have a process that works for you, it becomes easy. Simply repeat the process over and over again. Keep in mind that some of your websites might fail to make money. But a few of your websites will make a lot of money. So it only makes sense to create multiple sites with multiple products.

Conclusion

As you can see, making money with affiliate marketing in 2021 is not going to be that difficult. It can be time-consuming, but it’s also possible to outsource a lot of work. Many successful affiliate marketers hire someone to build their websites. They also hire people to write their articles. The most important part of the process is finding profitable keywords and products.

Always ensure you are in a niche that appeals to have a sufficient number of customers. Remember that someone has to actually buy the product for you to make any money.

Take note of what works for you and what does not. This process lends itself to constant improvement.