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Earning a handful of cash or passive earning, as you put it, is something that everyone dreams of. A large number of people are surfing the web just to know the basics of passive earning and how to make some income in an effortless manner.

Well, you may find it interesting that making passive income online is synonymous with affiliate marketing. This very concept of online advertising of different products and services has been in practice for years, helping people to earn money without leaving the comfort of their home.

Being a popular concept, affiliate marketing has attracted the attention of millions of users and to make money, it is essential to learn the tricks carefully.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Anyone interested to make money through affiliate marketing needs to focus on the definition for a better understanding. Affiliate marketing refers to the particular type of marketing activity that helps people earn commission and make money by advertising products of other people.

To start promoting any product, find the one that you prefer and promote it online. The owner of the product will offer you a commission from the profit he makes after every sale you will make. In simple terms, it is a revenue-sharing process for increasing sales. Anyone who owns the product shares some revenue with the marketer, who manages to make a sale.

Product creator and affiliate marketer are the two most important parts of this process. Yet, it is not necessary for them to have any interconnection. An affiliate marketer can select any product creator of their choice and promote it.

Though creator and marketer are mostly separate individuals, there are instances, where promoters are marketers of the product.

List of Top 17 Affiliate Marketing Sites

When you are into affiliate marketing, it is essential for you to gather some information on the top 20 affiliate marketing sites.

1. ShareAsale

When it comes to affiliate marketing sites, ShareAsale is one of the best. Based at River North in Chicago, Illinois, the website serves two distinct sets of customers at the same time, viz. the merchant and the affiliate marketer.

Affiliate marketers refer to ShareAsale to find the product of their choice and promote it online for earning commissions against the referrals they get for the product. To promote the product and popularize it, affiliate uses different means, which include but are not restricted to websites, SEO campaigns, PPC campaigns, social media accounts, blogs, emails, and RSS.

While the affiliate uses the site to find a product of their choice, merchants use it to implement different affiliate programs, track and manage it.

Founded in the year 2000, the company owned by Brian Littleton has been quite popular among the marketers as well as merchants and has more than 3900 merchant programs on its platform.

Though any merchant can use the platform, it is mostly targeted toward the mid-size and small merchants, who need an affiliate marketer for promoting their product. You may also like to know that it is the largest affiliate network in the United States in terms of interested advertisers using different affiliate network for managing the program.

2. Rakuten Linkshare

With its headquarters in Rakuten Linkshare, is one of the most popular sites when it comes to affiliate marketing. Started separately as Rakuten and Linkshare, the company later merged as one. The website of Linkshare gained immense popularity shortly after its launch by Heidi Messer and Stephen Messer in the year 1996.

In the year 2005, it claimed to be the biggest pay-for-performance online network site in the field of affiliate marketing.  The same year, Rakuten bought the ownership of Linkshare by paying $425 in cash. Apart from its headquarter in New York City, it has offices in London, Tokyo, Tampa, Chicago, and San Francisco. In the year 2014, Rakuten LinkShare was branded as Rakuten Affiliate Network. 

3. Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates or Amazon Affiliate Program is often touted to be the most popular affiliate marketing program across the web. This affiliate program is free for every blogger and website owner for becoming Amazon Associates.

To earn money from the affiliate program, marketers need to advertise products of their choice from Amazon.com on their personal sites by creating links. Once any customer clicks the link on the website of the affiliate marketer and purchases the product, he gains commission for the referral.

Earning of Amazon Associates varies from one month to another. Depending on the marketing skills, marketers can make anything from $1 to $25,000 every month.

It also depends on the type of product you select as Amazon has a commission rate of 4 percent to 8.5 percent for different products. The commission rate also depends on the number of products marketers sell every month. 

4. CJ Affiliate

Earlier known as the Commission Junction, CJ Affiliate is also well-known among the online affiliate marketers. A part of the Publicis Company, this online advertising company operates in the affiliate marketing industry across the globe and has a successful track record since its inception in the year 1998.

With its headquarters at Santa Barbara in California, it has offices in different parts of the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Sweden, Spain, France, and Germany.

The website of CJ Affiliate has gained immense popularity among the affiliate marketers for the availability of numerous products to promote. Just select the product of your choice and promote it, to make money.

5. eBay Partners

When it comes to earning money through affiliate marketing, there are very few, which can offer a handful of cash like eBay Partners. With loads of products to offer, eBay Partners allow marketers to earn money by diverting traffic and boosting sales across the platforms.

Known to be the most diverse marketplaces across the globe, you can find a plethora of products under different categories.  In eBay marketplace, you can get access to products manufactured by local brands as well as several global brands. Select the one that you find to be profitable and make money with referral sales.

 eBay Partners portal also provides interesting tools as well as comprehensive reports for delivering rich data that can help marketers manage their results and improvise for further gains. It also offers marketers to showcase their innovative skills and get rewarded for the same.

6. Clickbank

The affiliate marketing program of Clickbank, which was founded in the year 1998, is also named among the top affiliate marketing websites operating currently. The privately-owned company by Eileen Barber and Tim Barber, it has over six-million clients across the globe and is known to be the 87^th largest Internet retailer across North America.

A subsidiary of Keynetics Inc. based in Idaho, it also has it’s headquartered at Boise in Idaho. Apart from that, Clickbank has two offices in Colorado and Broomfield. The company operates in more than 200 countries and has a collection of over 46,000 distinct products for marketers.

In the year 2011, the Revenue Magazine awarded Clickbank as the best affiliate network in the US. Later in 2016, Internet Retailer Magazine named ClickBank as the top-100 Internet retailer. 

7. JVZoo

Anyone interested to earn money from affiliate marketing can take a peek at the website of JVZoo. Named among the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in the United States of America in the year 2016 as well as 2017, this company has helped numerous affiliate marketers earn a handsome amount of cash through passive marketing.

The company is known for facilitating the online sale, automate the sale along with marketing and delivery of different products. JVZoo boasts of an expansive network that gives partners different tools as well as solutions required for running affiliate business successfully and making a profit from it.

Facilitate the new affiliate marketers, the company has different tools as well as solutions for the newbie and also guides them to increase their profit margin within a short span of time. The best part is, the company takes responsibility for maintaining absolute online security.

Therefore, be it a financial transaction or any confidential data, there is no need to worry about any kind of threat and continue business activities in a hassle-free manner.

8. Flexoffers

Whether it is generating leads online or it is about marketing different products through the affiliate marketers, Flexoffers has gained significant popularity. Therefore, if you are planning to earn money through affiliate marketing, you can certainly give a try to Flexoffers.

The company has more than 12,000 active affiliate programs and keeps on adding innovative programs at regular intervals. Each and every account under Flexoffers is dedicated to an account manager and they keep a track of every detail of that account.

The managers also help affiliate marketers to promote their products through different campaigns and make a profit. Apart from affiliate marketers, the site also has several opportunities for merchants to promote their products.

Not just assisting the affiliate marketers and merchants, Flexoffers also keeps on adding the latest technologies to make their site even more user-friendly.

9. Shopify Affiliate Program

Shopify Affiliate Program has also received significant popularity among the affiliate marketers looking for some extra income. This affiliate program includes different types of individuals from content creators, influencers, educators, entrepreneurs, and many others.

These individuals refer to different types of audiences to Shopify and help in the growth of sales. Shopify is often considered to be the best choice for newbie interested to make income through affiliate marketing as it does not charge any registration charge.

To make money, you just need to make referrals to Shopify merchant sites and earn commissions.

10. MaxBounty

Anyone looking for making a decent from affiliate marketing can join MaxBounty. They are among the most popular performance-based Cost-per-action networks working across the web and specialize in maximizing the ROI for both affiliates and advertisers.

The site has been designed with the latest technology for creating a seamless experience for marketers. As the site provides diverse campaigns, affiliates can easily select products according to their specialization and increase referrals to make better gains. Use CPI, CPL, CPS, and CPA to make money.

11. Avangate Affiliate Network

One of the growing affiliate networks operating across the web, Avangate Affiliate Network has a database of more than 22,000 software products. The site is known for offering the highest commissions in the industry by providing advanced marketing tools to the users. The payment process is also flexible and you can claim your income after every sale.

12. RevenueWire Affiliate Network

If you are dissatisfied with the performance of your affiliate network and looking for a highly rewarding site, you can join the RevenueWire affiliate network. Not just the experienced affiliate marketers, this site also provides a great opportunity to the new marketers as well.

To make affiliate marketing even more rewarding, the site has exclusive offers for every marketer and ensures bigger gains after every sale is made. The best part is, they are adding new advertisers on a constant basis.

13. Impact Radius

The website always aims at offering bigger gains to different agencies and brands operating on the digital platform. With multiple products on the website and advanced marketing skills, marketers can easily advertise the product in an innovative manner for attracting sales. Advertisements can be displayed on different devices through multiple channels for attracting more sales.

14. DigitalRiver

The global eCommerce, marketing, and payment services, which was established in the year 2013, has its headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota. The company has processed over 30 billion USD in different online transactions and is a popular choice of affiliate marketers. The company has acquired multiple firms and is growing rapidly with their innovative skills.

15. LinkConnector

LinkConnector has been a popular choice among affiliate marketers for over a decade. The company has a wide variety of products and is trusted by numerous affiliate marketers across the globe.

The company boasts of its excellent skills in this field and is known for standing above the customers’ expectations. To help new affiliate marketers, they have several hands-on support and an unmatched tool suite.

16. AvantLink Affiliate Network

This online affiliate marketing portal is always aimed at working with a wide range of organizations and give equal opportunity to the well-established organizations as well as new organizations, which are just trying to make a mark in the digital platform.

The company has a distinct set of core values to help marketers operate securely and make a decent number of gains. Join the site only if you are ready to abide by its policies as it never shows any leniencies when it comes to the core values of the company.

17. Envato Affiliate Program

The Envato Elements Affiliate Program is known for paying its affiliate marketers for sending new customers who opt for a subscription. They pay the affiliate marketers even if the subscribed customers are already registered with Envato Markets, Tuts or Studio.

They have a lengthy cookie window for 60 days and offer as much as $120 as commission for every new subscription. Envato is the largest creative marketplace in the world and is famous for selling digital assets of a million dollars every year. The best part is, they offer a whopping amount of 30 percent of the money as an affiliate commission.

Conclusion

With multiple websites offering a plethora of opportunities to affiliate marketers, there is always a great scope for making money with affiliate marketing. However, you need to make your approach in the best way. Ensure that the basics of your affiliate marketing are laid correctly so that you can easily figure out how affiliate marketing works.

Understanding the operation system of affiliate marketing and learning how to start the same is necessary to make gains. To increase your profit level and make a mark in this field, you should also be familiar with the terminology related to affiliate marketing and use it appropriately.