5 Top Affiliate Programs With the Highest Conversion Rates

top affiliate programs

What’s the right balance of ads to content?

Too many ads can get you penalized by Google. Too few and you’re not making any money. Too many and visitors flee your website. Too few and — once again — you’re not making any money.

But you don’t need a ton of ads if you’re maximizing your ad space with top affiliate programs. When you’re getting the highest conversion rate, you can focus more on creating a customer-friendly experience on your website.

With a greater investment in the customer experience, you can attract more visitors and earn even more affiliate payments.

But to do this, you need to know how to find top affiliate programs. We’ll show you how and share with you a top 5 to add to your website.

What to Look for in Top Affiliate Programs

You’re in this to make money, right? So when choosing an affiliate program, you’ll want to consider the factors that make a program convert at a higher rate.

Don’t get fooled into choosing programs that pay you more per click/sale if they’re low converters. Even if the pay is less than it might be for another program, you’ll come out better in the long run with a higher conversion rate.

Here’s what you look for to achieve that rate.

Affordability

Affordable items tend to convert at a higher rate than more expensive ones. If someone can tell from the ad that the product is way out of their price range, they’re less likely to click.

“Affordable” is a completely relative term base on your audience. But as a general rule, your sweet spot for price range is whatever your target reader will consider an impulse buy.

For most sites, this will be between the $5-$10 range. If your audience is high end, this range may be higher.

Touch-ability

Items that people can touch convert at a higher rate than digital. That’s not always the case if the digital product has a brand behind it. But if the brand is put aside, people are more likely to click on something that they can hold in their hand.

Relate-ability

Top affiliate programs tend to have a cult following. They’re not commodities that everyone wants.

They appeal to a specific niche.

That niche is the same niche that visits your website. They should have enough of a following to be worth your while, but narrow enough that visitors aren’t seeing their ads everywhere.

Variability

Finally, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. If your blog visitors are clicking through your site, seeing the same ad or same product over and over, it starts to feel like spam. Find several winners and vary it up.

Now, our list…

1. Amazon Associates

We love Amazon Associates. This program does the right thing by paying you even if the person doesn’t buy right away.

They recognize that in the real world, fast-paced Internet environment many online purchases don’t happen straight from your site. Instead, they happen after someone leaves a site, texts someone, sends something on SnapChat, thinks about it and then comes back.

They put a cookie on the browser of someone who clicks on your ad. If they buy within 24 hours, you get the credit for it.

Among top affiliate programs, this one meets 3 out of 4 things to look for. They’re not very niche. But that’s okay because they have something for everyone.

2. iTunes Affiliate Program

If you’re running an entertainment industry related blog, then iTunes is among the top affiliate programs you should sign up for.

You can choose categories that you know your audience will love and then make money when they buy that song, TV show, movie or book on iTunes.

This affiliate program also meets 3 out of 4 of our things to look for. What they sell isn’t tangible. But they do have a solid brand behind them that makes that point obsolete.

3. MaxBounty

MaxBounty gets it. They understand the value of a qualified lead. They base their payments on clicks from qualified leads rather than purchases.

The pay per click is less, but you earn more because they take on the risk of whether or not someone buys something. You’ve already been paid. They’re assuming like Amazon, that once someone clicks, they’ll buy later.

The one catch here is that they evaluate the quality of traffic that you send them each month.

If you have a strong blog that attracts quality leads, you can make great money with MaxBounty.  If you have low-quality content that doesn’t attract good leads, they’ll let you know that it isn’t working out.

If you’re developing great content for people and not just affiliate payments, this is a great site to work with.

4. Neverblue

Neverblue works similarly to MaxBounty. They pay per click and evaluate whether you’re sending qualified leads.

Even if one doesn’t consider your leads high quality, the other might, so working with both of these will help you maximize your conversion rate.

Both MaxBounty and Neverblue can meet 4 out of 4 depending on which options you choose.

5. eBay Partner Network

This program meets 4 out of 4 things to look for. The items tend to be touchable. They’re usually affordable. There’s definitely variety, and their stock is highly relatable.

In addition to these, they have a brand that most people recognize. People are more likely to click on an ad when they recognize the seller.

And we have yet another reason we like this program. eBay is the king of nostalgia buys, which you can monopolize on if it fits into your website. Nostalgia is one of the most powerful emotions.

And emotions lead to impulse buys.

With this program, you choose the item or items that you promote on your site. So you can pick items that fit perfectly into your website scheme.

When one of your visitors clicks on a link and buys the item, you get paid.

Get Paid

With these top affiliate programs, you get paid. All you need to do is generate the traffic through:

  • Quality content
  • A user-friendly site
  • SEO
  • PPC (pay per click)

All of these will work together to generate high quality leads for your affiliate ads. You’ll need those quality leads to make the big money in affiliate marketing.

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