Even the most lucrative affiliate programs won’t make you any money unless you sell the product. For beginner affiliates this can be especially hard. Struggling and not making sales is a common problem even with the best affiliate program you can find. But lets come back to the actual selling later. There’s a few strategies which the most lucrative affiliate programs share.
For starters look at the various commission structures which are paid to affiliates throughout the industry. Take a look at Amazon, for example. They pay only 1-11% commissions on their products. Most affiliates know this isn’t great. A low commission structure not only means a small payout, it also limits your marketing strategies.
Most Lucrative Affiliate Programs – Digital
Digital products offer the most lucrative affiliate programs for a couple of reasons. They tend to pay out more than physical products – from 40%-100%. Digital products can do this because they’re not paying delivery or manufacturing costs. Once a product is made, it can be sold again and again. With physical products there’s more constraints: postage, handling, manufacturing etc.
But not all digital products are alike either. Some are “throwaway” courses which offer limited value. Clickbank is a favourite with many new affiliate marketers but Clickbank products often only lie in the $100 price range. Although this can be good with a high profit of 40%+, there’s other considerations with the most lucrative affiliate programs. Lifetime value of the product is one consideration.
If you’re only making a standard commission, that really doesn’t matter to you much. But if you can earn recurring commissions on subscriptions and membership products, it’s far more important.
Most Lucrative Affiliate Programs – Recurring Commissions
Recurring commissions are a huge key to making affiliate marketing pay. With only a few recurring commissions you can make far more than even with the highest value products (more on this later). Clickbank does offer products with recurring income. You’re better off choosing these kinds of products too. Why would you spend lots of time and energy only to make a single commission? Especially when a similar effort can make you a recurring income.
The best recurring income products to choose are those which offer huge value. Ideally choose products you would use yourself too and which offer a lifetime value to their customers. Online business tools are a good idea because successful businesses require software products which help them operate. Here’s a few online business tools which offer recurring income:
- The Six Figure Mentors – Digital Online Business Mentorship Program.
- Aweber – For email marketing
- Leadpages- For custom landing pages
- Get Response – Email marketing
- Elegant Themes – WordPress website themes
- Social Pilot – Social Media Tool
- SEM Rush – SEO tool
- Snip.ly – Conversion/opt-in tool
- HostGator – Hosting provider
- Shopify – Online Store Builder
Most Lucrative Affiliate Programs – High Ticket Products
High ticket products are obviously included in this list of most lucrative affiliate programs. A high ticket product is one with a large price tag – ideally over $500. With a $100 digital products you can earn $40 on a sale. But with a $1000 product you can earn $400 with the same level of commission. You might believe that it’s going to be much more difficult selling a high ticket products however. But remember that you have a global audience with digital products. The difference in work involved compared to profit will be minimal.
For the same profit, you would need to sell ten times that of the lower value product. It’s not ten times more difficult to sell a high ticket item online. Keeping in mind the earlier level of commissions comparing digital and physical products, it makes sense to also use digital products. However, there are physical products you can sell which are high ticket. Take a look at Hammacher Schlemmer. Some of their physical products value up to $190,000 and you can earn an 8% commission on that if you make the sale.
See also highest paying affiliate programs list.
Types Of Product & Market
But not everyone is in the market for a $190,000 flying hovercraft! I’d love one of them myself but sadly don’t have that kind of budget! The market for this kind of toy is smaller than for some other kinds of high ticket items. One of the biggest markets is for online business mentorship and training. There’s many more people who would pay to learn how to earn online and how to build a profitable business of their own.
If you consider the number of people hating their jobs and looking for an alternative, and compare this number with those looking for a flying hovercraft (or similar toy), there’s a huge difference. Online business mentorship is a growing industry too, which is why it can be one of the most lucrative niches online.
Multi-tier Sales
A multi-tier affiliate program offers to pay affiliates for the sales made by their referrals. This means as you bring people into a program, you can earn income based on their success. Multi-tier sales is another income stream you can benefit from once your online business is working well. See SFM Digital Business System.
The SFM Digital Business System has all of the benefits listed above: digital products, subscriptions products, high ticket products and also multi-tier sales. It offers one of the most lucrative business opportunities online. See SFM Mentors for more details.
Product Promotion & Marketing
Without a good promotion and marketing strategy, even the most lucrative affiliate program won’t make you any money. If cashflow is the “lifeblood” of an affiliate business, marketing is its “heartbeat”. Without a suitable marketing strategy, your business is doomed, even with the best most lucrative affiliate program there is!
How you decide to market your business will depend on your business system. With a low paying physical product from the likes of Amazon, for example, you’ll be severely limited to the marketing strategies you can employ. With a business system like that of The SFM Digital Business System, you’ll be able to use paid marketing more easily; especially if you invest in the top level products.
Take a look at the six figure (plus) funnel above. With a product range and high ticket items which payout up to 40% commission, you can use paid marketing strategies to drive leads into your funnel. When you can make an $8000 commission on a sale of a $20,000 product, you’re much more likely to be able to make a profit running paid advertising.
Compare this strategy to selling low value items from Amazon. A kitchen item worth $100/£100 would only make you around $8/£8.
Promotion Methods – Fast and Slow
To promote the product above from Amazon will be more difficult because you’ll struggle making a profit while running paid advertising. This means you’ll likely have to use other, cheaper or free strategies. This article, for example is a cheap marketing strategy. Blogging is also a slow process.
Paid marketing is much faster and much more scalable. So if you want an online business to be profitable quickly, expect to spent a lot of money initially. If, on the other hand you can’t afford the high value digital products, you may have to work a different strategy with your marketing.
Summary – Most Lucrative Affiliate Programs
To sum up the most lucrative affiliate programs offer one or all of the following:
- Digital products – which pay more commission (Usually 40% compared to 3-11% for physical products)
- Recurring income products – such as memberships, software and subscriptions. Recurring commissions may be small but they add up and give you an income rather than just a single “one-off” commission.
- High ticket items – don’t go for cheap items because you’ll need to sell in hug quantities. Instead pick high value items and your efforts will go further in terms of income
- Multi-tier sales – a multi-tier sale gives you a commission based on your referrals’ success promoting products from a range.
See SFM Digital Business System which contains all of the above and choose your membership commission level according to the level you can invest at.
How you market your product range is key. Without a good marketing strategy, even a highly lucrative business system like this one will fail to earn any money at all! Access a free video series to learn more about The SFM business, access a training and education platform and join an online community.
