9 Best Affiliate Networks For Beginners
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links and I may receive a commission if you purchase through them.
Want to monetize your blog by earning affiliate income?
Looking for the best affiliate networks for beginners to join for your niche?
One of the easiest ways to earn passive income is to gain a commission from promoting products and services that you believe in.
This is called affiliate marketing.
Before I move on with the post, if you haven’t started a blog yet and would love to make some side income, follow my easy step-by-step guide on how to start your own blog here for just $2.95/month!
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
How affiliate marketing works is you write about a product or service that you want to share with your audience in a compelling way or that shows why you personally recommend it.
If someone purchases it, you’ll gain a percentage of the sale. This can happen while you’re away from the computer, at the gym, or even sleeping. Pretty cool, right?
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How Much Can You Earn From Affiliate Marketing?
The percentage of commission you earn will depend on the affiliate program.
There isn’t a cap as to how much you can earn from affiliate marketing. Some bloggers earn thousands of dollars a month, just from affiliate marketing. The sky is the limit!
Different affiliate networks often host the same companies with a higher or lower commission rate. It’s always a good idea to shop around and find which networks best suit your needs.
Affiliate Marketing Will Not Get You Rich Fast
That said, it’s important to note that affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick scheme! It’s all about using the right strategies and being patient.
Although it’s passive income and is a great way to monetize your blog and supplement your online income stream, many of these companies do not pay out right away. They often have a window of 30 to 60 days to verify that each purchase is real and isn’t refunded.
So if you’re looking for a quick monetization stream that is more instant, it might be wise to look for another method to earn extra cash quicker.
Pro Tip: Struggling with affiliate marketing and can’t seem to get consistent affiliate sales? Check out the best beginner affiliate marketing courses to learn how to skyrocket your sales to hundreds of dollars per month.
Which Affiliate Marketing Programs To Join?
So now that you know what affiliate marketing is, you might be asking which affiliate marketing programs should you join?
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to tell you exactly which programs to join. It all depends on your niche.
You can check these blog posts below on affiliate programs for different niches:
- 30 Arts & Crafts Affiliate Programs For Creative Bloggers
- 25 Health & Wellness Affiliate Programs To Join
- 30 Fashion Affiliate Programs For Style Bloggers
- 40 Home Decor Affiliate Programs To Join
- 45 Beauty Affiliate Programs For Makeup, Skincare, And Hair Bloggers
- 15 High-Paying Personal Finance Affiliate Programs
- 25 Affiliate Programs For Food Bloggers To Join
- 30 High-Paying Affiliate Programs For The Blogging Niche
- 30 Great Parenting & Mom Affiliate Programs
- 40 High-Paying Affiliate Programs With Recurring Commissions
- 20 Best Affiliate Programs For Travel Bloggers
7 Best Affiliate Networks For Beginners
One reason why affiliate networks are great for beginners is because often there is a threshold you have to reach in order for your commissions to be paid out.
As a beginner, it might take you a longer time to get to that threshold, so being able to promote multiple brands at once can help get you paid out faster.
Now, let’s move on to the best affiliate marketing platforms that are a great place to start for new bloggers.
1. ShareASale
ShareASale is a great network to join if you’re a first timer to affiliate marketing. It’s user-friendly and easy to join, even as a new blogger. They’ve been around for over 19 years with 3,900+ affiliate programs to join so it’s great for every niche.
They offer paid-per-lead, paid-per-click, and paid-per-sale opportunities.
Some popular affiliates include Wayfair, Lulus, Reebok, Minted, Nectar, Romwe, Shein, Freshbooks, and WPEngine.
Click here to sign up for ShareASale.
2. Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is a great beginner program to promote products because everyone already knows and trusts Amazon so there’s no need to educate your audience on where they’re purchasing from.
Their cookie window is only 24 hours but you will gain a commission of up to 10% on everything that the buyer purchases.
This is great because people who buy on Amazon often purchase a ton of things unrelated to your product (such as toiletry, household items, gifts, etc) so you’ll gain a percentage of their entire cart!
In addition to products that you would normally promote, they also have Amazon bounty programs where you can promote different Amazon services such as Audible, Amazon Prime, and more where you’ll get a set commission rate.
Pro Tip: Amazon requires that you make 3 sales during the first 180 days of joining so it’s be best if you already have some traffic coming to your blog when you apply to this program.
Otherwise, you’ll be booted from the program and will have to reapply again (although they do allow you to rejoin and will give you another 180 days!).
Click here to sign up for Amazon Associates.
3. Awin
If you’re a beginner, Awin is a great affiliate program to join with over 29,500 affiliate companies.
The only catch is that they require you to pay a $5 deposit when you first sign up but they refund it back to you in your first affiliate payment.
Click here to sign up for Awin.
4. Howl
Howl is a newer affiliate platform that helps influencers connect with brands.
From Target, Sephora, Ulta, and more, it’s a great platform to join especially as a beauty or fashion blogger.
An advantageous selling point about them is that they pride themselves in paying creators even if sales are returned for certain brands. This generally isn’t how it works in this industry as you don’t get paid if there are returns made so this is one of their best features.
Click here to sign up for Howl.
5. ShopStyle Collective
ShopStyle Collective is a great affiliate network that allows you access to a ton of stores. You will earn 70% of a sale while they take the remaining 30%.
You can search for products or stores and they will show an estimated commission amount that you will earn with each sale.
They also have a handy widget maker and a tool in their dashboard that automatically lets you know when items in your widget go out of stock. This is super useful if you like to link to items that become out of stock quickly because then you don’t have to re-link the items manually on your blog.
This is a great affiliate network for lifestyle, fashion, home decor, and beauty bloggers! If you aren’t able to join RewardStyle, this is a much easier program to get into.
They pay out once you reach the $25 threshold each month by Paypal.
Click here to sign up for ShopStyle Collective.
6. RewardStyle
RewardStyle is one of the favorite networks for bloggers, especially those in the fashion, home decor, and beauty niche.
If you’ve been around the block online, especially on Instagram, you’ll probably have seen the LIKEtoKNOW.it app and that a lot of bloggers promote LTK links.
LTK owns both the app and RewardStyle so if you’ve been accepted to one or the other, you’ll have access to both to make affiliate income.
RewardStyle includes over 5,000 brands housed under one network so once you get accepted, you can promote tons of different products from all niches.
To get accepted into the network, they look for at least one social media profile that is highly engaged and that you regularly create shoppable content.
Click here to sign up for RewardStyle. If you want a referral to receive a higher chance of getting accepted, leave your email and name down in the comments so I can refer you.
7. FlexOffers
FlexOffers is another great affiliate program that I absolutely love and recommend using as a beginner. It has over 12,000 affiliate companies that you can choose to work with and they’re easy to join even if you’re a smaller blogger.
Some popular affiliates you can join include Wayfair, Foot Locker, FabFitFun, Bluehost, and Expedia.
They payout once your balance hits $25 or more.
Click here to sign up for FlexOffers.
8. Ultimate Bundles
Ultimate Bundles is a great affiliate program for beginners.
What Ultimate Bundles does is compile collections of resources from experts of groups of topics at an awesome discounted price to your readers. The topics range from healthy living, self-care, money, photography, healthy eating, blogging tips, entrepreneurship, traveling, and so much more.
Included in the bundles are tons of e-books, eCourses, workshops, printables, and more, all priced at crazy discount prices.
You earn a whopping 40% of each bundle that you sell and are paid out monthly by Paypal.
Click here to sign up for Ultimate Bundles.
9. Skimlinks
Skimlinks is one of the best great catch-all affiliate network that allows you to easily turn any links into affiliate links on your site.
All you have to do is sign up with Skimlinks, add the code they provide you to your site, and they will convert any existing links and future links you add to your site into affiliate links. You will earn 75% of the sale while 25% will be given to Skimlinks.
If your application to join a specific affiliate program was declined for whatever reason (such as not having enough traffic or your audience isn’t in the US), Skimlinks will allow you to still monetize your links without having to be individually accepted by these programs.
This is also a great option if you don’t want to deal with the hassle of joining a ton of affiliate programs and you just want a few networks to have to deal with.
Click here to sign up with Skimlinks.
More Ways To Monetize Your Blog
- 10 Influencer Networks To Start Making Money As A New Blogger
- 6 Ways To Make Money Blogging Online
- The Best Beginner Affiliate Marketing Courses
- 50+ Tools To Make Money On Your Blog
- How To Sell Printables And Make Passive Income
Liked this post? Please share it!
Loved this article! I have just signed up for two of them and wanted to thank you for sharing such valuable information. So… Thank you! 🙂
You’re welcome, Aniela! Glad you found something of value from this post!
Hi Grace,
Thank you for creating this helpful post! Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize a blog regardless of your page views. There are so many programs out there, it can be a bit intimidating. However, you have alleviated the stress of researching + finding the top programs to join.
Love how you provided a brief description of each affiliate program. Makes it easier to choose which one to join. Thank you for sharing!
Sandy
Wow, thanks for the great and practical tips!