Traits of a High-Quality Affiliate Program

How to tell which affiliate programs to promote

If you chose your niche right then the biggest problem is deciding WHICH brands to promote.

ShareASale, Impact Radius, CJ, etc. are FULL of brands in your niche who are desperately looking for high-quality affiliates to promote their products.

But not all brands are created equal.

Some will be a joy to work with: helping you come up with win-win scenarios, paying on time, etc. Others will be a massive pain in the ass: unresponsive, you have to chase them down for payments, etc.

Here are a few ways you can quickly determine which brands are worth spending your time, money, and effort promoting.

Commission rate

You’re doing this to make money. Obviously the amount you get paid matters. If you don’t care about commissions then I question how you even ended up reading this Substack.

Look for commission rates that are at LEAST 10%.

Many brands that publicly show really low rates (<5%) are willing to negotiate. The low rate is for coupon spam sites, if you can show that you’re legit they’ll usually bump you up (might have to show a track record of sending them sales first).