13 Affiliate Programs for Influencers to Consider
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We live so much of our lives online, and digital influence has become a sort of currency. Influencers span all niches, from beauty and fashion to tech and travel, not to mention niches within niches. With so much impact and the ability to shape consumer preferences, it’s no wonder that smart brands offer ways to reward influencers for promoting their products.
Combining creative recommendations with strategic monetization, here are 13 affiliate programs for influencers, including marketplaces and related opportunities to consider.
Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is Amazon’s affiliate program, and it’s one of the best affiliate programs for influencers. When you recommend products sold on Amazon and customers make a purchase, you can earn a commission.
Even if the customer doesn’t buy the exact item you recommend but purchases other qualifying products instead, you’ll still earn based on the sale.
Amazon Associates has customized linking tools to add text links (long and short), image links, or text and image links to your content.
Commissions go up to 10% from “qualifying purchases and programs” (translation — not everything sold on Amazon will result in earnings for you).
The biggest drawback of Amazon Associates is that the tracking cookie is considerably short at just 24 hours. It can be difficult to get your first sale(s) if you’re a new influencer, and if you don’t have qualifying sales within 180 days, your account will be automatically canceled.
Amazon Influencer Program
Established influencers may be interested in the Amazon Influencer Program instead of Amazon Associates. Like with Amazon Associates, you’ll promote products sold on Amazon and earn commissions for qualifying sales.
However, what the Amazon Influencer Program also offers is the ability to curate personalized shopping pages on Amazon. You can create collections of your favorite items, post shoppable photos, put up videos of you reviewing or recommending items, and even livestream to followers.
Commission rates vary based on the product category. You can find a breakdown of commission rates here.
Awin
Awin is an affiliate marketing platform for advertisers, agencies and publishers. It has a few different use cases:
- Create an affiliate program hosted through Awin
- Promote items to your audience for affiliate commissions
- Manage affiliate marketing for your clients
Let’s talk more about Awin for publishers, since that’s the category most influencers will fall under.
The Awin Publishers program is for bloggers, influencers, media partners, traditional publishers and vloggers. There are more than 25K brands to connect with and market to your audience, with niches that range from fashion to tech and travel.
ClickBank
ClickBank is an affiliate marketplace and e-commerce platform that caters to both affiliate marketers and brands looking to partner with influencers, and it’s home to many well-known affiliate programs for influencers.
For affiliates, ClickBank offers products to market, of course, along with training and education for new marketers who are still learning the ropes. Product categories include e-business, health and fitness, home and garden, and self-help.
The affiliate landing page says there’s a potential of earning up to 90% commission. There are two ways to earn with ClickBank: CPA (which pays a set dollar amount per sale) and revenue sharing (which pays a percentage per sale).
Collective Voice
Collective Voice is a content-monetization platform for creators. You can create affiliate links, and you can also team up with brands to develop sponsored campaigns.
Collective Voice also lets you nestle all of your content under one link, which you can add to your bio — no swapping out affiliate links every time you market a new product or service.
Collective Voice is looking for influencers who have an engaged audience (though the size of the audience doesn’t matter) and who already post high-quality content. In addition to affiliate tools, like a customized shop with your affiliate links and product widgets for your website, marketers will get educational resources to help them earn more.
Commission Junction
Commission Junction, often abbreviated to simply CJ, is one of the biggest and most popular affiliate program marketplaces around. Many big-name brands run their affiliate programs through CJ, like Blue Apron, Overstock and BuzzFeed.
CJ works with advertisers who want to drive sales, as well as publishers who want to promote products and earn commissions. Influencers will be on the publisher track, and CJ has tools for creating tracking links right from a partner brand’s website (as well as within the CJ platform). CJ can also automatically detect and convert existing URLs into affiliate links.
eBay Partner Network
The eBay Partner Network lets you market products and services from small, local businesses to huge, global brands and earn based on traffic and sales. Brands that you can market through eBay include Adidas, Crocs and Nespresso.
Don’t write off the eBay affiliate program as one that only promotes used items or relies on the site’s popular auction system, either.
As much as 80% of the items you can promote are brand new, and 90% of the items sold are through the Buy It Now option. Plus, over 70% of products ship for free, which is a major advantage that buyers will love to hear about. And when you sell luxury goods through the Partner Network, there’s a 100% eBay Authenticity Guarantee.
LTK
The LTK Creator program lets you create your own custom LTK shop that has the potential to reach more than 300,000 users per month. LTK also collaborates with upward of 5,000 brands that you may be able to partner with, putting it among the top affiliate programs for influencers.
While a lot of people are familiar with LTK as a fashion-centric shopping app, there are other niches here, too. For example, there are brands in the health and wellness, travel, technology, beauty, home, and food and beverages niches.
As an influencer, you’ll create shoppable, affiliated links and item collections to share your favorite products with followers and fans.
One of the features we like most is that the LTK Creator program has retargeting marketing to remind people of items they showed interest in. This can encourage sales when you may have lost them otherwise.
LTK accepts Creators who have engaged, public social media profiles and followings. They also want people who are already publishing high-quality, shoppable posts every day.
MagicLinks
MagicLinks is for video influencers who want to partner with brands and promote affiliate links in their content. The affiliate marketplace has more than 5K brand partnerships that marketers have access to, and there are sponsorship opportunities available as well. You’ll also be able to use MagicLinks tools to make your Instagram posts shoppable.
Influencers will have access to some of the world’s biggest brands, like Spanx, Nordstrom and Lululemon. MagicLinks’ brand partnerships span several industries: lifestyle, beauty, fashion, home and tech.
MailChimp
The MailChimp Referral Program pays you in credits toward your MailChimp bill as you refer new customers to the service. Both you and the person you refer can earn a $30 bill credit once they’ve paid for a monthly plan.
This is an interesting offer for existing MailChimp users. While it doesn’t pay you in a separate commission, it is a way to lower your monthly payment or pay-as-you-go charges, which can get pretty high with email marketing software.
For users who only have a free plan right now, you can earn credits, pile them up and then redeem them once you’re ready to upgrade.
This type of referral plan can work for all sorts of influencers so long as you’re a MailChimp user. It’s great for business and SaaS influencers, but it can also be beneficial for anyone who uses MailChimp regardless of their industry. The subscribers who love getting your newsletters may also want to sign up for MailChimp themselves.
Rakuten
Okay, so Rakuten isn’t exactly an affiliate marketing service, but we still think it has its place among the affiliate programs for influencers. Why? Because Rakuten can go hand-in-hand with influencer affiliate marketing. Here’s how it works:
When you shop at the more than 3,500 stores that Rakuten partners with, you’ll earn cash back. Rakuten makes commissions for sending customers to its partner brands, so they’re actually the ones doing the affiliate marketing. Then, they pass some of that along to you in the form of cash back.
If you’re testing products that you may want to market with affiliate links to your followers, you can earn just for buying them by using Rakuten.
ShareASale is an affiliate marketing platform with approximately 25K merchants, and it caters to affiliate marketers, agencies and merchants. Brands in the ShareASale networks include Etsy, Allbirds and Reebok.
Like most affiliate marketing markets, ShareASale has brands that affiliate marketers can partner with to promote products. However, influencers can also award loyalty incentives to some of their most active buyers.
ShopYourLikes
ShopYourLikes has both big-name and niche retailers that you can match up with to promote their products through affiliate links. Retailers that you can promote include Wayfair, Ulta Beauty, Michael Kors, Nike and Walmart.
The ShopYourLikes software lets you pull links from the dashboard or convert links when you’re on a brand’s website. You’ll also see recommendations for trending offers that can help you earn even more. Moreover, ShopYourLikes has two referral programs that have one-time and ongoing payouts.
Wrapping Up
Affiliate marketing is a powerful tool for influencers, allowing them to engage with their audience, build trust and earn money, all without having to spend time on product development of their own. It’s one of the best representations of “work smarter, not harder.” And with affiliate programs that offer generous commissions and clear terms, success comes down to how well influencers know their audience and can motivate them to act.