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If you’ve begun to dip your toes into the world of affiliate marketing, you’ve likely heard some crazy commission earnings thrown around. While the average affiliate marketer earns $82,000 per year, it’s true that some affiliates earn upwards of $141,000 per year.
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If you’re a beginner affiliate marketer looking to get a piece of the pie, below are 11 of the best affiliate programs for beginners.
11 Best Affiliate Programs for Beginners
| Affiliate Program | Type of Content It’s Best For | Commission | Cookie Duration |
| ShopMy | Clothing | Up to 50% | 7 to 30 days |
| RewardStyle | Clothing | Up to 30% | 7 to 30 days |
| TikTok Shop | General | Varies | None |
| Amazon Affiliates | General | Up to 20% | 24 hours |
| Impact | General | 1% to 40% | Varies |
| Etsy Affiliate Program | Unique goods | 4% | 30 days |
| ShareASale | General | Varies | Varies |
| CJ (Commission Junction) | Style, home, tech, business, and lifestyle products | Varies | Varies |
| Upwork | Finding talent, business | Up to 70% | 30 to 60 days |
| Fiverr | Finding talent, business | Up to 100% | 12 months |
| Pangea | Earning money, business | 2% | Unclear |
1. ShopMy
ShopMy is an underrated affiliate marketing platform. While the catalog of promotable products has mostly beauty, fashion, and home items, you can create affiliate links for almost any product. As long as the retailer is one of ShopMy’s partners, you can generate an affiliate link for most items.
ShopMy categorizes applicants into Creator Tiers, with the first tier being Enthusiast. An Enthusiast is someone beginning to show traction in driving traffic and sales. This makes it ideal for beginners.
Commission rates and cookie durations vary depending on the brand, but most are around 10% commission with a 7- to 30-day cookie window.
2. RewardStyle
RewardStyle, an affiliate program run by LTK, is similar to ShopMy. Affiliates can earn commission on fashion, home, beauty, and fitness products from over 7,000 retailers.
RewardStyle does require accepted creators to have “a high number of engaged followers,” however, it isn’t clear what that number is. If you have an established online community, but simply haven’t given affiliate marketing a go, RewardStyle is a great place to start. If you’re starting from ground zero with no online presence, RewardStyle isn’t for you.
If you’re accepted, you’ll see commission rates ranging from 10% to 30% and cookie windows ranging from 7 to 30 days.
3. TikTok Shop
Kalodata, a TikTok Shop analytics software, found that creators with 200,000 followers earned the following from TikTok Shop commissions alone:
- Not Making Much: Less than $100 per week
- Okay Earners: $10,000 to $50,000 per week
- Medium Earners: $50,000 to $100,000 per week
- Super High Earners: $179,000 per week
To become a TikTok Shop affiliate, you’ll need 5,000 followers on a personal TikTok account. However, it’s worth investing the time to grow a small following given the insane commissions affiliates experience.
As a TikTok Shop affiliate, you’ll promote products through your video content. When a viewer purchases the product via your link, you’ll receive a commission. There’s a variety of products to choose from including fashion, food, tech, and home. This allows you to create authentic content around products you love.
4. Amazon Affiliate
The Amazon Affiliate Program, known as Amazon Associates, allows digital marketers to earn commission on Amazon’s catalog of over 350 million products. It works the same as other affiliate programs—apply, wait for acceptance, generate custom links, promote products, earn commission.
Amazon Associates is ideal for beginners because the requirements aren’t too challenging to meet. According to Amazon, you must do the following to get accepted:
- Own a publicly available website or platform
- Have updated and original content on that website or platform
- If you use a social network to promote your platform, the social network must be established. (It’s unclear what qualifies as established.)
- Comply with the Mobile Application Policy
Once accepted, you’ll find commission rates ranging from 1% to 20%. The one downside is the cookie window of just 24 hours. This is much shorter than similar affiliate programs like Nike (7 days).
5. Impact
Impact is a well-known affiliate network, allowing you to connect to the world’s largest brands and earn a commission when you promote them. From Forbes to Walmart, there’s a range of brands, perfect for any niche.
The requirements to join are unclear. However, I was accepted with a small following and no website, so we have reason to believe you’d get in as a beginner. Commission rates range from 1% to 40%, and cookie durations range from 24 hours to 45 days.
6. Etsy Affiliate Program
Etsy offers two options to earn commission—the Affiliate Program and the Creator Collective. If you own a website, the Affiliate Program is for you. If you’re a social media creator, the Creator Collective suits you best.
The Etsy Affiliate Program, hosted through Awin, allows you to earn commission for sharing products listed on Etsy’s global marketplace. You’ll earn a standard 4% commission with a 30-day cookie window. While this isn’t anything to write home about, Etsy’s Affiliate Program doesn’t have strict eligibility requirements, making it a great place for beginners to start.
With over 30,000 merchants and 1 million publishers, ShareASale is a popular pick for both brands and affiliates. According to their website, affiliates earned $1.4 billion in commissions last year—sign me up.
It’s simple to apply—just create an account, then complete the form that follows. You’ll enter information like your website URL and answer a few questions regarding your promotional strategies.
While ShareASale doesn’t have strict acceptance guidelines, they’re looking for websites with consistent traffic. It isn’t clear how much traffic they expect. You must also have a business email address matching your domain.
That said, ShareASale is ideal for beginners because, unlike some other affiliate programs, you don’t need to make a sale to remain on the platform. This gives you the time to learn how to generate sales as an affiliate, without the added pressure of a looming removal from the platform.
8. CJ (Commission Junction)
CJ, formerly known as Commission Junction, is the world’s largest partnership-based performance marketing platform, connecting brands with publishers and creators. Trusted by publishers like BuzzFeed, CNN, and Klarna, it’s a reputable platform to kick off your affiliate marketing journey.
To become an affiliate with CJ, you must have a content platform focused on one of the following topics:
- Style (fashion, beauty, personal style)
- Home (interior design, decor, DIY, cooking, food)
- Tech (consumer electronics, computer software and hardware)
- Business (finance, tax services, office)
- Lifestyle (travel, outdoor, sports, health and wellness, auto)
Your site must also meet the following criteria:
- Authentic, high-quality content
- Non-gated, public content
- 10,000 pageviews per month and/or a substantial following on social networks
While CJ isn’t a platform you can join from day one, it’s open to less established websites. You won’t need a crazy number of monthly pageviews to get in. As with most affiliate networks, commission rates and cookie windows vary depending on the brands you promote.
9, 10, & 11. Freelancing Platform Affiliate Programs
If you run a finance, business, or other work-related blog or social media platform, become an affiliate for freelancing platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Pangea. While these programs aren’t spoken about as much, they’re an underrated way to earn some serious commission as a beginner.
As an Upwork affiliate, you’ll earn 70% commission on the first contract of every new client referred to Upwork, with a maximum commission of $150 per transaction. For example, if you refer a client who hires a freelancer for $1,000, you’d earn $150 in commission. If you referred a client who hired a freelancer for $200, you’d earn $140.
You’ll also earn 5% commission for repeat contracts, with a maximum of $150 in commission per transaction.
As a Fiverr affiliate, you’ll earn commission ranging from 25% to 100% of a customer’s first order. You’ll also earn a 10% revenue share from all future orders placed by the customer in the first 12 months.
On Fiverr, a customer is a client, and an order is a gig they hire for. For example, if a client you refer places an order for a $1,200 per month social media management contract, you’ll earn 25% to 100% commission on $1,200 off the bat. Then, for the first year, you’ll earn another 10% commission on that contract each month.
Pangea is a lesser-known freelance marketing platform. However, their affiliate program offers a competitive commission rate. As a Pangea affiliate, you’d earn 2% of what the person you refer earns or spends on the platform. This is unique in comparison to Upwork and Fiverr’s affiliate programs, which don’t allow you to earn commission on freelancer’s earnings.
If you referred five freelancers, each of whom earned $20,000 freelancing on Pangea, you’d earn $2,000 in commission.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Become an Affiliate With No Experience?
To get started as an affiliate marketer, you’ll first need to build a website or social media platform to attract website visitors or viewers. Once you’ve done that, apply to the affiliate programs listed above. Place your affiliate links on your website or within your content, and when a viewer makes a purchase via that link, you’ll earn commission.
Which Affiliate Program is Best for Beginners?
The best affiliate programs for beginners are:
ShopMy
RewardStyle
TikTok Shop
Amazon Affiliates
Impact
Etsy Affiliate Program
ShareASale
CJ (Formerly Commission Junction)
Upwork
Fiverr
Pangea
How Much Do Beginner Affiliates Make?
It depends on the affiliate programs you join, how frequently you promote your affiliate links, and how much traffic you have. Generally speaking, beginner affiliate marketers can earn up to $1,000 per month.
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