In this guide, I’m sharing the top affiliate programs for Influencers. I’ll also be touching on what affiliate marketing is, and why it’s a great way to add additional income to your Influencer business. Ready to add another income stream to your business?
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a form of marketing where a brand pays you for selling one of its products. It works through link tracking. You share a special link that gets tracked by the brand, and when someone makes a purchase through your link, the brand will pay you a portion of the sale. Affiliate marketing is a great way to add to your Influencer income, by selling products you already use and love.
What are the common affiliate programs for Influencers?
You can be an affiliate marketer for almost any brand. And some brands offer their own affiliate programs. But one of the easiest ways to work with brands as an affiliate is through affiliate marketing networks. This is usually a program that the brand joins, that connects them more easily with Influencers. And these platforms work in a similar way to Influencer Collaboration platforms.
The Top Affiliate Marketing Programs for Influencers (and bloggers)
1. Liketoknow.it
LTK is one of the biggest Influencer Affiliate marketing networks out there. It’s an easy way to share links on your Instagram, blog, and LTK feed. You can create a profile and share the items you use and love, with your followers. If you’ve been working to build up trust with your audience, you need to have LTK.
2. CJ Affiliate
CJ Affiliate is another one of the biggest affiliate networks. With CJ you can work with Barne’s and Noble, Blue Apron, IHG, JCrew, Priceline and so much more. They’ve also expanded their network to include Influencer marketing opportunities, so if you’re not already a member of CJ Affiliate, you’re going to want to join right now.
They have set entrance requirements for joining that include:
- You share content in one of the following general niches: style, home, tech, business, or lifestyle
- You provide authentic, high-quality non-gated content
- You have a clear site privacy policy
- You don’t offer software, coupon/deal, or incentive models
- You produce a blog with 10K+ page views a month, or you have a substantial following on specified social networks (i.e., you are an influencer)
- If the bulk of your traffic is outside the US and Canada, your site must be in English.
If you meet all of those, you’ll be able to join the program and then apply to work with brands within CJ Affiliate.
Sign up for CJ Affiliate here.
3. ShareASale
ShareASale has been an affiliate marketing program since 2000, making it one of the oldest and most established networks. Because of this, it’s been able to build a solid reputation and make connections with larger companies.
ShareASale has more than 3,900 products up for sale that you can easily create an affiliate link for. This means that virtually every Influencer can find something on ShareASale that they use, and that their audience will love. Over 1,000 shops use ShareASale exclusively.
Another advantage of ShareASale is that it makes regular payments. You can get paid out as soon as you have a balance of $50 or more. And they pay you automatically on the 20th of every month.
4. Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is among the best general affiliate programs around. It’s a great place for a beginner affiliate to start with. BUT make sure that you are getting some traffic to your links, and that you have trust built with your audience before joining the Amazon associates program.
The Amazon ‘cookie’ only lasts for 24 hours which means your audience has to be ready to shop when they click on your links. They’ll also kick you out of the program if you haven’t gotten a sale within 90 days.
5. Impact Affiliates
Impact is the last program that I’m going to share with you today. With Impact you can work with brands like BackCountry, Levis, Adidas, and Airbnb! It allows you to work with some of the most common, big National Brands. Once again, you have to apply to be an affiliate on Impact, and then you apply to work with each brand individually.
Once again, on Impact you can also start working as an Influencer with these brands! That means you can find ways to monetize both with affiliate marketing and Influencer Marketing.
Learn more about pitching brands here.
6. Refersion
Refersion is one of the affiliate marketing platforms that recognizes and capitalizes on the similarities between affiliate marketing and Influencer marketing. They combine the two, allowing affiliates to promote links and brands to work with Influencers on the platform.
It also integrates with your store on most eCommerce platforms, including Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and WooCommerce.
Why you should join multiple affiliate programs
Different brands are going to be on different platforms, so if there’s a specific brand you want to promote, you’ll need to join the affiliate program they participate in. That being said, you’ll likely be on most of these platforms. I even mentioned some of those specific brands that have partnered with specific programs, to give you an idea of how it works.
Top tips for making money with affiliate marketing
Before you go, I’m going to share with you some of my top tips for making money with affiliate marketing.
1. Build up trust with your audience. Once your audience trusts you, they’ll be much more likely to purchase products that you’re recommending.
2. Start doing affiliate marketing with products that you already know and use every day. That way you can easily start sharing those links with your audience. If you already have a product that you use every day, and your audience has already asked you about that product, start there!
3. Be consistent. Share consistently with your audience meaning once a week you can add a question sticker to your Instagram and let your audience ask you for links. Get them used to shopping with you.
4. Be HONEST. You’ll lose trust right away if you’re not being honest. Your audience will be able to see through dishonesty so truly share products that you know and love. Being honest and consistent is going to make you more money in the long run than sharing every product ever created.
5. Start small. I don’t recommend joining all 6 of these affiliate programs all at once. Start small by joining one or two programs and get confident and comfortable sharing those links with your audience.
Keep in mind that you have to always disclose affiliate links. You can do that in every blog post, IG story, and IG post by simply using #affiliatelink #affillink, or disclosing on your website that some of the posts contain affiliate links. This ties back into being honest and building trust with your audience.
What questions do you have about affiliate marketing programs for Influencers in 2022? Or what questions do you have about affiliate marketing in general? Come hang out over on Instagram and ask me any questions that you have! (@taradcarr)
Good luck growing that affiliate marketing income for your Influencer business!
