What is affiliate marketing?
“Affiliate marketing” is a marketing strategy where affiliates get paid a commission for referring customers. Many companies have such programs to help drive more sales through referrals.
It is one of the most popular ways of making money online in California, especially for people with large social followings and email lists that they can tap into.
There are countless programs that you can sign up for depending on your niche of interest, some pay a fixed one off commission per sale, and others pay a recurring commission every month.
Recurring commissions are more profitable in the long term since you’re essentially getting paid endlessly, as long as your referral keeps renewing their subscriptions. They help create a stable and dependable passive income.
This article will go over 20 high paying affiliate programs you that you can sign up for and start promoting in California. Once you’ve been approved, you will be assigned a unique referral link that will be used to track your sales.
Any time a customer makes a purchase through your link, it is considered your sale and therefore you’ll be eligible to earn a commission from it.
You can promote the affiliate products and services through any channels you prefer, whether that’s social media, blogs, YouTube, forums, or emails.
20 Best Affiliate Marketing Programs in California
1. Hubspot
Hubspot is a sales and marketing software that helps companies attract customers and close deals. It has one of the highest paying affiliate programs that you can start promoting in California.
You can either choose to get paid a 15% recurring commission, or 100% of the first month’s revenue. Hubspot’s plans range from $45 – $3,600 per month.
Such high ticket affiliate programs are great since you don’t need to convert that many people in a month to make decent earnings.
2. SEMrush
SEMrush is an online tool designed for marketers and SEO experts. Its affiliate program, called BeRush, pays up to $200 for every successful referral, and an additional $10 for every user who signs up for the free trial.
3. Surfer SEO
Surfer is an AI-powered SEO tool that helps website owners optimize their websites by analyzing the top ranking pages on Google (for keywords that they’re trying to rank), and then providing recommendations on what to do to get ahead of them. It’s currently one of the fastest growing tech startups.
Surfer’s affiliate programs has a 25% recurring commission rate. It’s plans range between $49 – $199 per month.
4. Jasper AI
Jasper is an AI copywriting assistant that helps writers increase their productivity and efficiency. You can simply provide it with a brief of what you would like it to write for you, and within seconds it researches the internet and then auto-generates relevant copy that you can use on your website and social media.
Jasper AI’s affiliate program has a 30% recurring commission rate. It’s plans range between $40 and $80 per month.
5. Unbounce
Unbounce is an AI-powered landing page builder with a myriad of smart tools to help marketers create high-converting pages and even entire marketing campaigns.
It’s affiliate program pays 20% recurring commission, with plans ranging between $90 and $575 per month.
6. Fiverr
Fiverr is a popular online marketplace for virtual services such as graphic design, web design and writing. Its affiliate program pays up to $150 per referral.
One great thing about Fiverr is that there are so many fantastic niches within the site that you can promote a variety of different services such as graphic design, blog writing, voice overs, and so much more.
7. Coursera
The recent global lockdown made a lot of people more accepting towards the idea of online learning. Coursera is one of the major online learning platforms. Its affiliate program pays up to 45% commission on over 4,000 courses.
With all those courses, the possibilities for what to promote are almost endless. You could promote computer science, psychology, language learning, writing, and more.
And their affiliate program allows you to make money even if the person clicking your link doesn’t make the purchase right away. If they take some time to think about it and go back to signup later then as long as it’s within 30 days of clicking your link, you’ll still get the commission.
8. Teachable
Teachable is another big player in the online learning domain. The platform is designed to help teachers build their own online courses which students can pay to enroll. It currently has over 68,000 teachers signed up. Its affiliate program pays 30% recurring commission for any successful referrals.
On average, people in the Teachable affiliate program earn about $450 per month but if you really dedicate yourself to it then you could be looking at closer to $1,000 or more per month. And some people earn even more.
9. Udemy
Udemy is yet another online learning platform, perhaps the most well-known due to its wide range of inexpensive courses. Its affiliate program pays 15% commission on any course you sell through your referral link.
Now since the courses on the site are so inexpensive, it can be difficult to make much money from your commissions. But one thing you can do to offset this is to try and find courses to promote that aren’t discounted. If you can find full-price courses to link to, then you stand to make quite a bit more money.
10. Shopify
Shopify is a platform that enables people build their own e-commerce stores using innovative and drag-and-drop builders.
One of the reasons it is so popular is because of how user friendly it is. Any non-technical person can build their own shopping store from scratch without the need for any coding knowledge.
The Shopify affiliate program pays an average of $58 for every new user referred.
11. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is quite similar to Shopify. It is also used to build and manage e-commerce sites. It has a really well-paying affiliate program, with a commission of 200% of a customer’s payment for the first month, and up to $1,500 for enterprise customers.
12. Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the most popular web hosting companies in the world. Its affiliate program pays $65 per successful referral. The company paid out over $5 million in commissions just last year alone.
One thing to note about Bluehost is that they don’t typically let you promote too much on social media, so you’ll have to find other ways to promote them if you want to make money.
A great strategy is to actually set up a website on Bluehost and use that for all of your Bluehost affiliate marketing. And the pricing plans are reasonable, so you won’t have to spend too much money doing so.
And it comes with bonuses, the biggest one being that if people see you’re actually hosting your website on Bluehost it will help build trust in you and the site itself, making them more likely to sign up and earn you that commission.
13. Hostgator
Hostgator is also a web hosting company with an affiliate program that pays its affiliates $65 per referral. However, if you get more than 21 referrals in a month, the commission increases to $125 per referral.
14. Green Geeks
Green Geeks is yet another hosting company, but this time with a green twist. The internet is a notorious polluter of the environment, Green Geeks hosts all their websites on eco friendly servers. Its affiliate program pays up to $100 per successful referral.
But as with several of the other affiliate programs we’ve discussed today, the money you get for referrals rises the more referrals you make. For instance, 1 sale would give you $50, whereas 3 sales would be $70.
And since Green Geeks is eco-friendly, that’s a huge selling point that you can use to land referrals. People care a lot about the environment nowadays so make sure to use their eco-friendliness in your affiliate marketing content.
15. Coursera
Wix is a website builder that enables non-technical people build advanced websites with ease. It is currently being used by more than 100 million people around the world. Its affiliate program pays $100 for every new user.
Because it’s so popular, it can be a lot easier to get people to sign up with it. Wix already has a great reputation so the fear of it being a scam or not worth it is limited. This is one of the biggest benefits that Wix has versus some other affiliate programs.
But keep in mind that you have to have a $300 minimum in your account to withdraw your earnings and the withdrawal process isn’t as simple as with other platforms.
16. ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is a website and sales funnels builder designed to help entrepreneurs close in on leads. Its affiliate program pays 40% monthly recurring income. This means that you will get paid for a subscription you brought in for as long as that person is subscribed!
And there are two different packages that will pay you two different rates. There’s a $97 package, you’ll earn $38.80 per sale, or a $297 package, which you’ll earn $118.80 for selling.
17. Leadpages
Leadpages is another website and sales funnel builder. Its affiliate program pays 50% monthly recurring commission for as long as the user keeps renewing their subscription, much like ClickFunnels.
And a unique feature of the Leadpages affiliate program is that you don’t even have to be a member yourself to be part of it. Although we would suggest that you do sign up yourself, to build credibility with your audience and to be able to write a better review.
18. Convertkit
Convertkit is an email marketing automation tool designed to help run advanced email marketing campaigns. Its affiliate program pays 30% recurring commission every month for up to 24 months if the person stays subscribed that long.
As with most of these programs, one of the best ways to get sales out of ConvertKit is to actually use it yourself. Specifically if you compile a list of all the tools they offer that you use yourself, your readers and/or viewers will want to use those tools too.
19. Airbnb
Airbnb is a rental marketplace where travelers can find inexpensive places to stay and home owners can make money by leasing out rooms in their homes.
Through its affiliate program, you can earn a commission by either signing up property owners to the platform, or by helping travelers find places to stay. Airbnb has not disclosed its affiliate commission structure so you’ll have to sign up to the program to find out.
20. WarriorPlus
WarriorPlus is a marketplace for digital products such as e-books, online courses, software, etc. It has thousands of products that you can promote as an affiliate. The commission rates vary from product to product – usually from 50% all the way to 100% of a user’s first purchase.
