There are actually many great performing affiliate programs out there you can participate in. If you have an existing site, you can match up your site with a relavant affiliate program and strategically plug in banners and links to get people clicking through. In Commission Junction, for example, they post a performance average of each merchant called the EPC. EPC stands for earning per hundred clicks. So for example if you are sending traffic to a merchants site, for every hundred clicks you send you should make a certian amount such as $20-50. Affiliate programs with higher EPCs in CJ will naturally attract more affiliates to those merchants because affiliates are looking at that EPC average when deciding who to promote first. But EPC isn’t slways a true indication of how well a program performs due to the fact that there are better converting affiliates and less well converting affiliates sending traffic to the merchants. Managing the EPC number on the part of the affiliate manager should be a constant focus on improving the EPC.

So when yo are looking at programs to promote there are several very common affiliate niches that have been good performers for years. These include:
- online dating
- online surveys
- consumer electronics
- jewelry
- insurance
- financial
- parenting/babies

These are but a few niches that have historically done well for affiliates. More recently there has been an absolute explosion in affiliate programs and affiliate networks coming online. Affiliates have so many choices it’s really hard to figure out where to start. I usually suggest to brand-new affiliates that they join Commission Junction, Linkshare, Shareasale amd Performics (Now Google) and start applying to programs. Apply to hundreds of them and see who approves you. Some merchants maybe pickier than others about letting you into the program, but you can usually contact the affiliate manager to get them to let you into the program. But don’t let a few declined applications slow you down.

Once yo have found an affiliate program you think you can do well with, you should contact the affiliate manager to obtain whatever intelligence you can from them about angles you should be trying and what has worked for affiliates historically. Be prepared to not get too far with some programs, as they might not have very advanced affiliate management and therefore can’t tell you the most effective ways to promote the program. Some can give you keyword files, content and coupon codes to increase conversions. You will find out fairly quickly after joining some affiliate programs, who has the support and who doesn’t.

Another strategy is building out niche websites focused on different products or services. Some affiliates will build large coupon or discount portals to capitalize on all the searching going on for coupon codes for various merchants. Building a niche site should focus around content and plenty of it. You can use Word Press to power your content management system. We actually build and host word press websites for affiliates for free. If you are looking to promote some of the top affiliate programs on the Internet, we manage several good ones across many niches. We give you affiliate tool and lots of intelligence to get off on the right foot and make some sales quickly. Contact us if you would like to work with our company on a one-to-one level.