Which affiliate programs should I join?

You will find thousands of companies wanting you to sell their stuff for them. The question is, "Will you get paid?" The answer is maybe, maybe not.

WHAT? OK, just relax and let me explain this to you.

If you just go and join any old affiliate program, you are taking a big risk. You have to do this the smart way or forget about ever seeing your commission checks. The top affiliate programs will pay you.

You never join an affiliate program off the website that is selling the product. You have no way of knowing if they pay you or not. If you sell a bunch of their stuff and find out they don't pay, you really have no recourse short of taking them to court and spending more than they owe you on legal advice.

Sometimes these website owners will set their minimum so high you have to sell for several months before you ever even qualify for a check. I've seem minimums as high as $500. A new website selling a single product could take a long time to reach this amount.

So what do you do? You need a third party to keep them honest. This third party is called an affiliate network. An affiliate network has a contract with the selling party. They do all the leg work for the seller by finding qualified affiliates. They look over your website to make sure you aren't going to embarrass anyone. They keep track of your sales and they pay you.

The seller has to supply the product, package and ship the product and guarantee the product. They pay the network to pay you.

All you have to do is place a link on your site and you are ready to go. Nice deal for you.

These affiliate networks will have hundreds of different affiliate programs for you to choose from. They have programs in all niches. You can join one or fifty or their programs. It's all up to you. The good news is they will combine sales from all programs for you to reach your minimum. The minimum is usually between $25 and $100. This will seem like a lot when you are first checking your stats. Once you are established, in a month or so, you will reach your minimums many times over.

The point here is if you join affiliate programs from the sellers themselves and all of them have a $100 minimum, you will wait a lot longer before you ever see your first check. That is, of course, assuming they will pay at all.

Now you can see why you never join from the sellers website.

There are several affiliate networks out there. Some are great, some are good. All the networks I have listed here will pay you. The great ones have all the best programs with the big commission percentages and reasonable minimums.

Here are all the networks I use. Start at the top and join. Once you have been approved, you will be able to go through their directories and pick out the programs you want to work with. Most networks will approve you immediately. Some of their clients will have their own approval requirements. This will all be listed on their site.

• Click Bank - All they have are digital products, that is, products that are available by download. These are always big sellers because the buyer gets instant gratification. Instant Approval
  

• Commission Junction - They deal with companies that sell physical products. Lots of big ticket items available here. Super high cash potential. Plus many smaller items. Great variety.

• PayDotCom - Commission is delivered to your PayPal account. Instant Approval

• Linkshare - They have been around for a long, long time. Huge variety of products and companies to choose from. Instant Approval

• 5 Pillar Club - This program pays 5 levels down. Not an MLM. Join and set a link on your site. Put it on your index page. It doesn't matter what you are promoting. As soon as you start getting traffic, you will start making money from this one. Instant Approval

• Modern Click - Make Money! - You must have an active website to get approved.

• Azoogle - Great CPA Program. Must have an active website to get approved.

Join them now. Look around and see what they have to offer. If you can't find enough selling products in your field, then join the networks below. (You can join them all now if you want to but you will probably have your hands full with the first few for a while.)

• Websponsors

• Shareasale - Instant Approval

• clickXchange - Instant Approval

• ClixGalore - Instant Approval

• Fast Click

Don't overwhelm yourself by trying to join too much at once. You don't need 10,000 items to sell. You can always come back here later and join more.

Don't join other networks you find by the side of the road. Anyone can throw together a network of their affiliate links and you will end up selling for someone else's profits. The networks I have listed here have been around long enough to prove themselves worthy of joining. And... they will pay you!

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Join Top Affiliate Programs