The Best Affiliate Programs for Beginner Streamers - Powder

Are you just starting out as a streamer and wondering how some of the top streamers on Twitch make their money? Streaming is super fun and all, but wouldn’t it be nice if it could pay your bills too?

Well, luckily for you, there’s an income stream outside of Twitch subs, Bit donations, and ad revenue that you can tap into right away as a streamer. It’s called affiliate marketing, and it’s a fantastic way to get some dollar signs rolling in so you can dedicate more time to streaming and growing your platform.

Today, we’re going to show you some of the best affiliate marketing programs for new streamers and smaller creators. If you do your due diligence with affiliate marketing, you can take one step closer to achieving your goal of becoming a full-time streamer.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Let’s start by defining what exactly affiliate marketing is. Affiliate marketing is a way that creators like you can tap into the e-commerce space by acting as an advertiser for specific products or websites. Any creator can get involved, from influencers to streamers to bloggers to email marketing gurus.

Essentially, you build a relationship with an affiliate network or a specific brand, they give you a specific link to their products to advertise from your social media channels, and then you make a commission on whatever sales your unique link generates. Sometimes, your link will even come with an exclusive coupon just for your audience.

It’s a mutually beneficial relationship! The company gets to advertise its products and make more sales, and you get a bit of extra income from the transaction. Everybody wins!

How Much Can You Make?

The great part about affiliate marketing is that it scales with you as you grow. Most of the time, you make a small percentage of the sales that you generate. So, the more sales you make, the more money gets into your pockets.

Commission rates will vary from deal to deal. Starting out, you might make between two and five percent on most of your sales. But if you grow and start creating massive amounts of sales, you might be able to negotiate a higher percentage.

A Springboard

Affiliate marketing is a fantastic place to get your feet wet in the massive ocean of social media influencing and digital marketing. If your affiliate program does well and your channels grow, your affiliate deal could turn into an influencer marketing deal, where brands pay you an outright fee to advertise their physical products and even give you a sample to try out.

The great part about affiliate programs is that they can be pretty easy to get involved with, even for smaller creators. Because you only get paid for the sales you create, it’s not that risky for companies to bring you on. That means that even if your channel is still in its baby stage, you can start affiliate marketing!

What Are the Best Affiliate Programs?

Now that you have a grasp on what affiliate marketing is, let’s talk about some of the best programs for beginners. There are a ton of different marketing platforms out there that are taking on new affiliates all the time.

Affiliate programs are absolutely the way to go. They offer affiliate links to a ton of different brands so you can select which products to rep. While their commission structure doesn’t have the highest rates, they’re a perfect way to build your portfolio and get some experience with these marketing tools.

With that, here are a few of the best affiliate sites out there for beginner streamers.

Amazon Associates

The Amazon affiliate program, called Amazon Associates, is one of the top affiliate programs for beginners. If you’re looking for a wide range of products to choose from, who better than the largest online store in the world?

Amazon has created a super easy affiliate program for the user. You can simply log onto Amazon to find a product you like, and a small popup window allows you to create a link. The link can be text, an image, or both — Amazon gives you a step-by-step tutorial to show you exactly how to do it.

Commission rates range based on the type of product you’re advertising. For example, luxury beauty products give you a five percent commission rate, while digital products like video game download codes only offer one percent.

With so many options to choose from, you can easily find a product you believe in that you know your target audience will like and potentially buy. It’s easy to be successful from there!

Not only that, but Amazon will give you a commission for any referrals that your link generates for the next 24 hours. This means if somebody clicks on your link but buys a product different than the one on the landing page, you still make money.

ShareASale

This is one of the oldest affiliate programs in the business. They boast longevity and experience in the field, and for good reason. They work with over 25,000 merchants to provide a huge selection of products with commission rates that range from four percent all the way up to 50 percent!

If you’ve got an entrepreneur’s personality, you’ll do great with ShareASale. With potentially high commission rates and real-time reporting on how your links are doing, you can gather data about each launch to implement better marketing strategies on the next one!

ShareASale is also one of the more user-friendly options out there, so you can get involved without much experience. Soon, you’ll be boasting high-quality marketing campaigns and you’ll watch your earning potential skyrocket.

ShareASale also gives you a direct deposit on the 20th of every month, so you can rely on a consistent recurring commission just in time to pay your bills.

CJ Affiliate

The next affiliate marketing network is CJ Affiliate, also called Commission Junction. It’s the largest affiliate platform in the world. Once you’ve gained some experience with affiliate marketing, you’ll want to get involved with CJ Affiliate.

Like the others, CJ offers a wide range of products to advertise. But unlike its competitors, CJ Affiliate helps you form long-term partnerships with brands so you can stabilize your income and your sanity.

They also offer flexible affiliate commission strategies so your online business can earn as much as possible. If you do well enough, this affiliate program could turn into some passive income.

CJ Affiliate also offers analytics on your campaigns, showing you data like click counts, conversion rates, and overall impression numbers. They set you up to succeed and offer the potential to grow. So, if you’re serious about affiliate marketing, this is the right program for you.

eBay Partner Network

The eBay Partner Network is similar to the Amazon Associates program in that it gives you full access to make a commission on any product on their site. The well-known e-commerce platform features many small businesses — select from a wide variety of products and support small businesses by advertising their products.

eBay also has a couple of unique features, most notably their Smart Placements feature. So when you put an eBay affiliate link on your site, the link can detect your user’s browser history and display a product on the banner ad that it knows they will like or have visited before.

This will help boost your conversion rates by advertising products you know the user will enjoy.

Honorable Mentions

There are tons of other affiliate websites to check out, from well-known brands like Shopify, Etsy, and Rakuten Advertising to powerful partners at Clickbank, Awin, Fiverr, and FlexOffers.

If the programs mentioned don’t suit your fancy, give these amazing programs a try instead. Affiliate marketing is a massive industry, and there’s plenty of room for people just like you.

How To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing

If you’ve been streaming on Twitch or running your own YouTube channel for some time, you’ll likely be able to jump right into affiliate marketing. Here are some tips that can help you get started.

Build Your Audience

Unfortunately, you can’t start affiliate marketing without a following. Most platforms have a threshold you need to meet before you can work with them. Amazon, for example, requires you to have at least 500 followers on one public platform.

So, if you’re not around that threshold yet, just focus on building your following a bit more, and then you can jump in.

Follow the Data

Most of these platforms provide extensive data on how well your affiliate links are performing. This data is invaluable when it comes to optimization. Analyze what works and what doesn’t so your marketing efforts aren’t in vain.

Which products do best? When should you post your links? What’s your conversion rate like? How’s your SEO? Follow the data, do what it tells you, and you’ll watch your affiliate income gradually increase.

Beginner Affiliate Marketers, You’re in Luck!

Affiliate marketing is an essential part of any successful streamer's income. They don’t just get payouts from Twitch — they diversify their income so that they can be consistent and long-lasting.

If you’re still a beginner in the affiliate marketing world, give these affiliate programs a shot. As your channel continues to grow, you can watch your income grow with it and move even closer to becoming a pro streamer.

For more information about streaming and tools that can help you with content creation across your socials, check out Powder's blog.

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