The best affiliate programs succeed by aligning with their prospects' needs, leveraging strategic partnerships, and creating a win-win situation for brands and their affiliate partners.?
While building your affiliate program, one of the best steps you can take to succeed is to analyze successful programs, as it'll help you discover what works.?
We’ve made this easier for you by compiling eight successful affiliate marketing examples. Keep reading to find out what makes these programs special.
1. Amazon
Amazon is one of the world’s largest online retailers, offering millions of products across several categories. The brand’s affiliate program, commonly known as the Amazon Associates program, allows individuals and businesses to earn money by promoting affiliate products through Amazon affiliate links.?
Its global reach and trusted reputation attract affiliate marketers of all experience levels.
Why Amazon’s Affiliate Marketing Works
The success of the Amazon Associate program lies in the following:
- Global Reach and Credibility: Affiliates benefit from Amazon’s global recognition, making it easier for them to convert customers.
- Wide Product Range: With millions of products available, affiliates are spoilt for choice on what products to promote. This extensive product range allows them to choose products that align with their niche and target audience. As a result, niche creators get the flexibility to engage in affiliate marketing, where they demonstrate the products’ benefits for better conversions.?
- Competitive Commission: Affiliates can earn up to 10% commission, depending on the product category. The best part is that an affiliate marketer can earn without selling. For example, if you add a product to your cart through an affiliate link, the affiliate earns a commission on your entire cart.?
- Custom Affiliate Tools: The program offers affiliate links tailored to different types of affiliates, including content creators, bloggers, and larger affiliate marketing websites.
- Specialized Amazon Influencer Program: This program is designed for high-profile creators. Beyond the regular affiliate benefits, the Influencer program offers a personalized Amazon storefront and a unique affiliate link to show the recommended products.?
- User-Friendly Platform: Amazon provides an intuitive affiliate dashboard for its associates. The dashboard also simplifies tracking and optimizing campaigns.
2. SafetyWing
SafetyWing
is another brand with a successful affiliate program managed by our affiliate network, Vivian Agency. The brand provides travel and health insurance designed for nomads and remote workers.
As one of our success stories, SafetyWing’s affiliate program exemplifies how effective affiliate program management can increase sales and revenue.
Why SafetyWing’s Affiliate Program Is Among the Top
Let’s explore what you can adopt from SafetyWing’s affiliate program:
- Expert Affiliate Marketing Management: The brand’s affiliate program was carefully designed by a team of professionals to meet both the brand's and affiliates’ goals.
- Data Analytics for Affiliates: Affiliates get a personalized ambassador dashboard where they view their performance and discover areas for improvement.
- Recurring Revenue Opportunities: SafetyWing’s products are subscription-based, so affiliates earn commissions on new subscriptions through their affiliate links and subsequent renewals.
- Access to Marketing Materials: SafetyWing’s ambassadors or affiliates get access to webinars, courses, business coaching, and other marketing materials to help them achieve affiliate marketing success.
3. Click and Grow
Click And Grow
specializes in smart gardening products that simplify growing plants indoors. We started running its affiliate program in 2021, with which it experienced massive success in its first six months, making over $20k in sales from 200 affiliates.
By 2023, Click and Grow’s affiliate program boosted its annual sales revenue to over 187%.
To date, the brand still runs its affiliate program, collaborating with big publishers and influencers.
Why Click and Grow’s Affiliate Marketing Is Successful
Here are a few things to learn about Click and Grow’s affiliate program that you can take on board:
- Strong Affiliate Management: Click and Grow secured the success of their affiliate program by partnering with affiliate marketing professionals.
- 45-Day Cookie Tracking: When affiliates refer a potential customer, and they don’t buy a product immediately, no problem, they can still earn commission if the customer purchases a smart gardening product within 45 days. This is 15 days more than average.
- Free Marketing Resources and Test Product: We ensured Click and Grow’s affiliates had the right marketing resources to help them reach customers. Plus, the brand offers a free test product to ensure the affiliates understand the product they’re marketing.
- Affiliate Support: Affiliate support is a key feature of Click and Grow’s affiliate program structure. The idea is to ensure affiliates have all they need to achieve the brand’s goals while earning affiliate income for themselves. ?
- Discounts and Giveaways: We systematically created a system that allows affiliates with a minimum of 10k followers to offer 10% discounts on Click and Grow products to their audience. They are also eligible for free giveaways.
4. Skillshare
Skillshare
is an online learning platform that offers courses on creativity, business, and more. The affiliate program rewards partners for promoting free trial signups and paid subscriptions. This has earned the program its popularity today as many social media personalities create content promoting it online.
Why Skillshare Has a Successful Affiliate Website
Skillshare is one of the top affiliate marketing examples to learn from because of the following attributes:
- Attractive Commissions: Affiliates earn 20% commissions for each paid membership they secure.
- Comprehensive Dashboard: Skillshare provides a personal dashboard for each affiliate to track their payouts and performance in real time. This will help them adjust accordingly if they are not meeting their personal targets.
- Exclusive Monthly Offers: Skillshare offers a rotating monthly offer on their courses and grants affiliates access to market those offers to their audience.
- Broad Audience Appeal: The brand provides courses that cater to diverse interests, increasing the potential for affiliate sales.
5. Shopify
Shopify
is a popular e-commerce platform that enables entrepreneurs to build and manage online stores. Its affiliate program offers a competitive payout with high earning potential that’s only limited by the affiliate’s strategy. This makes it an attractive choice for digital marketers looking to start affiliate marketing.
Why Shopify’s Affiliate Program Excels
Wondering why Shopify emerges as one of the best affiliate programs? See examples below:
- Comprehensive Resources for Growth: Shopify sets its affiliates up for success by providing marketing materials and lead magnets to inform their affiliate strategy.
- Competitive Referral Commissions: Shopify offers two different ways for affiliates to earn passive income. They offer Shopify Plan and Shopify POS Pro referrals. Although there are different rules governing each of these offers, generally, the commissions are attractive. Plus, there’s no limit on how many referrals you can make.
- 30-Day Tracking Cookie Window: Affiliates will still get commissions if their leads (through their affiliate’s unique referral link) purchase a Shopify plan within 30 days.
- Growing Market: The surge in online store creation, especially post-COVID-19, ensures a steady demand for Shopify services.
- Brand Success: Shopify is a successful brand that has birthed many other successful e-commerce brands. This gives influencers, content creators, referral affiliate sites, and other Shopify affiliate partners enough references to create valuable content that drives conversions.
- 30-Day Cookie Life: If a customer signs up through an affiliate link, the affiliate can earn commissions on that customer if they subscribe within 30 days.
6. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign
is a leading email marketing, CRM, and customer experience automation platform. The brand’s affiliate program is a standout example in the SaaS industry because of its generous rewards and ample resources for affiliates’ success.
Why ActiveCampaign’s Affiliate Program Works
The following are reasons for ActiveCampaign’s affiliate marketing success:
- Generous Commission: The brand offers 20-30% tiered commissions. This tiered commission structure fuels affiliate performance. Also, affiliates are eligible for lifetime recurring payouts for new signups and renewals, incentivizing affiliates to drive repeat customers.
- Long-Lasting Tracking Cookies: Affiliate links have a 90-day tracking cookie life. This means that if a potential customer visits the site through an affiliate link, the affiliate will get credit if the customer buys within 90 days.
- Brand’s Features and Reputation: ActiveCampaign’s suite of features and reputation as a top-rated software solution makes it easy for affiliates to promote and secure customers.
- Affiliate Community: The brand provides an affiliate community where partners can connect with and support one another.
- Robust Affiliate Portal: They have an intuitive affiliate portal that offers comprehensive analytics metrics for affiliates to track their performance.
- High Earning Potential: You can become a successful affiliate marketer quickly with ActiveCampaign. With an average of $1,350 per referral and high conversion rates, affiliates can make over $10,000/month with just 10 clients.
- Comprehensive Marketing Resources: Affiliates will not need to rack their brains for an affiliate marketing strategy because they’ll have several promotional tools and resources from the brand at their disposal.
- Global Accessibility: The program is open to affiliates worldwide, increasing its reach and diversity.
7. Juice Beauty
Juice Beauty, Inc.
is a clean beauty brand known for organic, eco-friendly skincare products. Its affiliate program appeals to beauty influencers and health-conscious creators. The brand offers commissions to participating affiliates when they sell the company’s products through affiliate links.
Why Juice Beauty’s Affiliate Program Works
Juice Beauty made it to this list for simple yet effective reasons. Let’s see the characteristics of their affiliate program:
- Easy to Join: The program is free and easy to join. This makes it accessible to a wide range of affiliates.
- Competitive Commissions: Each affiliate marketer earns a starting commission of 6% on all sales generated through their affiliate link.
- Exclusive Offers: Partners can share special deals and discounts with their audience. This enhances conversion rates.
- Dedicated Support for Affiliates: They run their affiliate program through an affiliate network offering a dedicated program manager to assist affiliates with questions or support. This ensures that affiliate marketers have the resources they need to succeed.
8. Wix
Wix
is a website-building platform that helps users build professional and aesthetically pleasing websites without coding knowledge.
Why Wix’s Affiliate Campaigns Works
Check out the key components of Wix’s affiliate program that positioned it for success:
- Robust Resources for Affiliate Success: Wix provides everything affiliates need to attract leads and convert them to customers. They even have affiliate landing pages and promotional materials in different languages to reach more people.
- Intuitive Dashboard to Track Performance: Affiliates can view their dashboard for a comprehensive report on their performance. This provides insights into how well they’re carrying out their affiliate campaigns.
- Attractive Commissions: Wix offers one of the best payouts per sale for affiliate marketing programs in its industry, and affiliates get a flat commission of $100 per sale. However, they must earn a minimum of $300/month to receive payment.
- High Conversion Rates: Due to the popularity and effectiveness of Wix in building good websites, it’s easy for affiliates to attract and convert potential customers.
Join an Affiliate Network to Launch a Successful Affiliate Program
Affiliate marketing is an effective way for your brand to gain more revenue and popularity. However, running a successful program needs expertise. While you can implement some ideas from the examples we discussed, you’ll maximize ROI by partnering with a reliable affiliate marketing service such as Vivian Agency.
Like SafetyWing and others, your brand can be our next success story. Let’s discuss how we can help you when you book a call with us now or schedule a meeting at a convenient time here.
