As per my last post, Affiliate marketing has been for a long time, and remains to be, one of the greatest and simplest ways to earn money online today. With affiliate marketing you choose which companies and which products you want to promote, and in some instances you can receive anything up to 75% of the total purchase price. However some affiliate schemes are simply better than others, but which are which?

Without further adieu, below are my top 5 picks (In reverse order) for profitable affiliate marketing opportunities this year.

5 – Clicksor. Clicksor offers its partners the chance to earn money by offering contextual, keyword targeted, and clickable text ads from within the content of your website or blog. The process is fully automated by Clicksor and the wide selection of advertisers available means their text ads are highly targeted thus offering a more professional and less spammy experience for your readers. Text based ads are also less intrusive as in-content advertising has a more natural feel to it. It also converts pretty well (if the content is also written well). Clicksor also pays relatively fast (every two weeks) through PayPal or by check, and also offers its own 10% referral program. However, if you are a relatively new blogger or webmaster, this might not be the program for you just yet, as Clicksor will want to see moderate traffic going to your blog first.

4 – Sharesale. With a mere 2500 merchants on-board and just 4000 programs, Sharesale certainly isn't the biggest of the bunch, however, they're also an affiliate marketing program you can no longer ignore. Boasting advertisers such as Adidas and Reebok at the top of the tree, as you work your way down you also won't be disappointed. There's plenty of excellent products from a whole host of  big brand (and not so big brand) advertisers, from niches across the board, and with commissions that'll make your mouth water! So If you haven't bumped into Sharesale before, then this is one affiliate marketing program that's well worth adding to your armory.

3- Commission Junction. When it comes to really big name advertisers, Commission Junction has to be the number one name in affiliate marketing. C.J’s unique selling point has to be the facilitation of truly profitable relationships between the virtual man on the street, and the really big named advertisers such as Virgin Media, AT&T, Weight-watchers and Symantec to name just a mere few. Once approved as an affiliate with C.J. you also need to get approval with each advertiser, however despite the presence of this seemingly extra bureaucracy, the approval system works pretty smoothly. The commissions available can also be immense (depending on the program).

2 – Clickbank. Clickbank has to be the top affiliate marketing program for digital information products in the world. You can easily find thousands upon thousands of different information products in just as many niches. However unlike Google and C.J. both Clickbank’s advertisers and publishers are more our virtual man on the street, rather than the big name brands that both Google and C.J cater for, and whilst you may be wondering how on earth such simple offerings could possibly compete in the world of affiliate marketing, you’d be shocked as to just how well unbranded information products sell on Clickbank. With over $1.8 Billion in affiliate sales in the last decade and an average of over 35,000 sales per day, these huge numbers speak for themselves in regard to the popularity that the virtual man on the street can have vs. the big name brands. The size of commissions can also be very generous and usually range from about 50% upwards.

1 – Amazon Associates. Amazon.com is debatably the largest online store in the world, with millions of products that you can advertise on your website. By becoming an Amazon affiliate, you can get up to ten percent commission on qualifying purchases. The commissions may not be as hefty as the likes of C.J or Clickbank, however the Amazon brand inspires almost instant trust and its affiliate program is widely acknowledged as one of the best, if not the best out there at the moment. Even if you’re just a home-based blogger, if you have a large social network, or are developing and maintaining any kind of content based website, the Amazon program offers its partners linking tools that are a breeze to use and will definitely help you earn a quality income from your website and with very little effort on your part (providing you have the traffic).

To learn more about affiliate marketing for beginners check out my last post right here.

Paul Graham

Paul Graham Blog.com